


pop! goes my heart

by attheborder



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Music and Lyrics (2007) Fusion, Creativity, Gratuitous Abuse of Insider Music Industry Knowledge, M/M, Musician Crowley (Good Omens), Pop music, Romantic Comedy, Writer Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23454280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: When has-been musician Anthony Crowley is recruited by pop singer Anathema Device to write a song for her new record, he jumps on the chance to resuscitate his career with a hit. There's only one problem: he can't write lyrics to save his life.But a chance meeting with a stranger by the name of Aziraphale, with a poetic streak that's a perfect fit for the song, changes everything for Crowley. Together, they'll create something beautiful, fight the forces of the music industry, and perhaps even find a way back into love...A Music and Lyrics AU for the GO Rom Com Event, complete with all-new original songs written and recorded by the author!
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 419
Kudos: 519
Collections: Good Omens Rom Com Event





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by the amazing [curtaincall,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curtaincall/pseuds/curtaincall) with art by the incredible [goosetooths!](http://instagram.com/goosetooths)
> 
> i'm hoping to have a chapter up every week! unfortunately my vocals are on all the songs, but please imagine the characters singing them instead 😝

**BuzzFeed Celebrity  
** **Forgotten 90s Rock Stars: Where Are They Now?**

**13\. Anthony Crowley**

If you were of MTV-watching age in the 90s, you probably remember the inescapable video for Morningstar’s #1 hit “Demon Heart.” The song’s pounding chorus soundtracked an unforgettable visual extravaganza, featuring Lynchian claymation devils and avant-garde (for the time) computer-generated imagery of a journey through Hell, playing behind the band.

Morningstar, the band led by vocalist-guitarist Anthony Crowley and vocalist-bassist Lucie Ferris, formed in London in 1989 when the pair were just 18. Tours with Oasis, Pulp, and the Cranberries cemented their iconic live performance style, the two singers trading off dance moves and riffs in a hypnotic, almost telepathic back-and-forth. 

One of the brightest lights of Britpop, Morningstar’s sound was informed by 80s predecessors like Talking Heads and Squeeze, as well as a prescient appreciation for ABBA which anticipated the late 90s explosion of Scandinavian influence in popular music. 

Lucie Ferris went on to a wildly successful solo career in the 2000s, competing with Avril and Alanis for the title of reigning pop-alt queen. In 2007, she unexpectedly retired from performance to earn an MBA from the London School of Economics, followed by a position as VP of A&R at Downstairs Records. She signed hit after hit, and eventually rose to become CEO of the label, where she now oversees a stable of dozens of top pop artists. 

But what about the man with the moves himself, Anthony Crowley? A heartthrob known for his red hair, sultry voice and ever-so-tight trousers, Ferris’s partner rapidly faded from the spotlight after she went solo. At one point the two were linked romantically, but by the time Morningstar went on permanent hiatus, they’d split amidst rumors of infidelity. In 2005 he came out with a self-penned solo record, _Temptations,_ but it sold less than 50,000 copies and was roundly panned by critics. 

Since then, he hasn’t released any new music. However, a quick peek at social media shows that in recent years, he seems to have made a minor comeback as a novelty nostalgia act. Currently, the next show listed on his official Facebook page is a solo performance at a pharmaceutical conference in London this week. 

At least we’ll always have Morningstar: all of the band’s music videos have recently been remastered in HD and reuploaded to YouTube, probably courtesy of Lucie Ferris’s industry clout. You can check them out  here—  and now, unlike in 1994, you _can_ pause on those close-up shots to peek at what exactly Anthony’s got hiding in those trousers ;)   
  


***

“Fucking clickbait bullshit.”

Newt leaned over Crowley’s shoulder, peering at the article pulled up on his tablet. “BuzzFeed, though!” he said. “Isn’t that— they’re big, yeah? That’s good press?” 

“You tell me, _millennial,_ ” Crowley said. Newt winced at the loaded epithet. _Low blow,_ thought Crowley. Newt liked to consider himself an old soul; any reminder of his relative youth was a sensitive subject. 

“No, you’re right, you’re right,” Crowley quickly covered, not wanting to make his assistant upset when they still had a full status meeting to get through. “I’ll take what I can get. See, look, a complimentary insinuation about my penis size. Not bad for a Tuesday.” 

“Um. Congratulations?” Newt sounded deeply uncomfortable, and Crowley grinned. 

About a year back, Crowley had put up a classified ad in the _paper_ of all places, hoping to snag a mum or auntie with a lot of time on her hands and enough of an abiding appreciation for his back catalogue to enable her to do passionate work on behalf of his career (such as it was). 

When a Mr. Newton Pulsifer had rung him to schedule an interview, he’d assumed the kid had been calling on behalf of some sweet stay-at-home sister, looking to make a quick quid running Crowley’s schedule and keeping up with his paperwork. 

But then Newt himself had shown up, wide-eyed and innocent and eager-to-please as a golden retriever, and Crowley, with the shrewdness of a man who’d been around the block and back, quickly realized he’d struck gold. 

Not only was Newt relatively organized and reliable, but most vitally he had the advantage of being someone Crowley could fuck with when he got bored. The kind of shit he pulled to keep Newt on his toes would never be tolerated (nor deserved, really) by any reasonable woman of the type he’d originally been picturing for the position.

Officially, Newt was a Personal Assistant. That’s what Crowley told him he was allowed to put on his LinkedIn, so his mum would believe him when he told her he’d finally landed a job. But in practice, he was more of a combination of valet, errand boy, studio manager, and official Crowley’s-Ego-Soother.

“Sorry I’m late, by the way,” Newt was saying, coming out from behind Crowley to sit down across from him in a severe gray armchair. 

Crowley dropped his tablet down onto the sofa and readjusted his sprawl. “S’fine,” he said, waving a hand. “Time is an illusion anyway. Proust said that. Or at least I think he probably did. I wouldn’t know.” 

Newt did not seem to parse this to any meaningful degree. His eyes had gone a bit dreamy as he took his agenda and binder out from his messenger bag. “Anyway— I _was_ going to be early—”

“Sure, Newt.”

“— but after I got off the Tube, right, I stopped for just a second at Speaker’s Corner to listen to some really mad bloke yell about witches. And I was standing there, and then I happened to turn to my right—”

Crowley interrupted: “Don’t tell me. You met a girl?”

Newt gasped. “How did you know?”

Crowley rolled his eyes, hidden safely behind his designer sunglasses. Newton Pulsifer was relentlessly, desperately heterosexual, and in any other case, that would’ve been cause for Crowley to eliminate him from his daily life out of sheer boredom, even given all his other positive traits. But to Crowley’s chagrin, Newt’s tendency to fall deeply in love with a new girl every other week had turned out to be his most valuable asset as an employee.

For example, Crowley had recently enjoyed a successful two-week residency in sunny Blackpool, thanks to Newt’s short-term infatuation with Brigitta, whose mother happened to run the music bookings at the Pleasure Beach. And before that, it was Tess, with the slimy Old Etonian uncle who’d jumped at the chance to book Crowley in to perform at one of their reunions. The list went on. 

Somehow, despite him having zero connections in the music world, and a working knowledge of the industry that seemed to be entirely based upon repeat comfort viewings of _Spinal Tap,_ Newt had done more to keep Crowley’s career alive in the last year than his latest ex-manager Boris had managed in five. 

“Lucky guess. Go on, tell me about her.” 

Newt didn’t need to be asked twice. “Oh, she was gorgeous... Long black hair, perfect skin, and wearing the most beautiful turquoise coat, like some kind of Victorian princess, you know. And I was trying not to stare, but then she _turned_ to me, and looked me right in the eyes— and oh, Mr. Crowley, her _eyes—_ big and dark and round like— um— car tyres— and she said—” 

_Car tyres. Christ,_ Crowley thought, _remind me to find any poetry this kid ever writes and burn it, for the sake of the literate public._

“She said...?” prompted Crowley, trying to hurry this along. 

“She said _hi there,”_ breathed Newt, “and guess what— she was _American!”_

“Mazel tov.” 

“Anyway, we got to talking, standing right there. She told me she was a singer. I bet she’s got the loveliest voice…. Well, I suppose I must have mentioned then how I, ah— do some work for you, and she got _very_ excited. She said she’s a _huge_ fan, she says _you’re_ her favorite! She wants to meet you!” 

“How kind.” 

“Then she said that she felt intimately connected to me, because we have the same aura—”

“I’m sorry— she said _what?”_

“I know, I was confused too. But then she got out this weird camera thing, and got a picture of the two of us, and she showed it to me and it’s _true!_ We _do_ have the same aura! Mr. Crowley, I just know she’s the one, look!” 

From inside his jacket pocket Newt removed a small square Polaroid, and gave it a longing look before holding it out to Crowley. 

Crowley leaned forward across the coffee table and took the photo, wondering if after he pronounced his approval Newt would finally have the wherewithal to move on with the status meeting. There were a half-dozen invoices he’d sent Newt chasing after that month that he rather wanted an update on.

He looked down at the photo. He looked back at Newt, ready to toss off some sarcastic evaluation of the girl in question.

And then he looked at the photo again.

“What the _fuck—!”_ he yelped. ”Newt, that’s _Anathema Device!”_

“I know,” said Newt, and that dreamy look in his eyes intensified a hundredfold at the sound of her name. “She told me. Isn’t that a brilliant name? Oh, do you think she’d let me change mine to match when we get married? That’s what feminists do nowadays, isn’t it? Newton Device sounds so much better than _Pulsifer_ …” 

Crowley spluttered for a bit before regaining control over his tongue. “Hold on— I don’t think you understand. That’s _the_ Anathema Device, singer, dancer, biggest bloody pop star in the universe right now! Didn’t you see her performance at the Grammys? All those boys in leather, the witch hats, the incantations? Went viral, all that outrage about occult symbolism— Satanic Panic 2.0, Twitter was saying, you didn’t hear about that?”

“No…?” 

“And she wants to meet _me?”_

“Yes…?”

“Jesus.” 

Crowley sank back on the sofa, pushing his sunglasses up so he could rub his eyes. 

In the stunned silence, there came a sharp knock on the door of the flat. 

“Hold on. Hold that thought— lemme see what that is— probably Ginny from next door’s locked herself out again— won’t be a moment—”

Newt was once again lost in the splendor of the aura portrait, not even watching as Crowley levered himself up from the sofa, walked over to the door, and swung it open.

A bright voice chirped, “Oh! Hello there!” 

There was a man standing in his doorway. Crowley was positive of this. He was definitely a man, and he was definitely standing in Crowley’s doorway. 

Crowley wondered, inanely, if he was some kind of door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. Then he remembered that it was 2020, and people didn’t go door-to-door selling encyclopedias anymore, and also that he lived on the seventh floor of a secure luxury building with a strict anti-solicitation policy. 

“Your doorman let me up— lovely fellow— I hope that’s alright? I’m not... intruding?” The man was peering cautiously behind Crowley, into the large open-plan living room that served as a combination parlor and home studio. Atop a large marble desk beyond the sofa and chairs sat a wide recording console, with a monitor and speakers perched above. On the wall behind the console hung framed plaques and posters from Crowley’s Morningstar days, with small floating shelves holding various award statuettes and paraphernalia, including a collectible bobblehead from 1998. A rainbow of guitars stood in various racks against the walls, with Crowley’s prized 1977 scarlet Gibson ES-335 in a place of honor to the left of the desk. 

“I— yes— no— I mean— why—?” said Crowley.

There was a beat, and then the man’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, dear boy, did Mimi not call—?”

It clicked. “Ohhhhhh,” said Crowley, feeling idiotic, “you’re here for the plants. She did call, yeah, but when she said her good friend was filling in I was just expecting—” 

The man looked down self-consciously at himself. He was dressed, much like Crowley, in an outfit that was clearly carefully coordinated to give off a certain _vibe—_ but unlike Crowley, whose aesthetic was definitively oriented towards looking _younger_ than he was, this stranger seemed to be angling for precisely the opposite. He wore a velveteen waistcoat, and a soft, heather gray jacket atop it. A tartan bowtie nestled below his chin induced in Crowley the nonsensical thought, hastily banished, that the man was some kind of present, delivered directly to Crowley’s door with the intention he’d unwrap it. 

“Expecting a woman?” said the man, at the same time as Crowley said, weakly, “Expecting someone more… like Mimi.” 

There was a pause. Crowley would not have hesitated to categorize it as _painful._ The man was the first to break it, recovering with a cheerful wave and saying, “Aziraphale Fell, at your service.” 

“Anthony Crowley,” said Crowley, “but, er, Crowley’s fine— look, c’mon in.” 

He waved Aziraphale— _Lord, what a name_ — inside, letting the heavy frosted-pane door swing shut behind him. 

“Hiya,” said Newt politely, from his chair. “I’m Newt. I’m Crowley’s Personal Assistant.” 

Aziraphale, mildly confused, nevertheless acknowledged the kid with a kind nod of the head, before turning back to Crowley, businesslike. “I presume you have your own supplies?” he said, removing his jacket and dropping it down on the back of the sofa. Crowley quickly grabbed it and hung it up gently on a hook by the door, as Aziraphale began rolling up his shirtsleeves. 

He went on, “I’m not one to pass judgement, but this morning there was one of Mimi’s other clients, an elderly gentleman, just a darling, at least I thought so, until I confronted him politely about the fact that he didn’t seem to be in possession of any paraphernalia, as it were, and found myself on the receiving end of a violent excoriation. Now, I didn’t know _precisely_ what he was saying, as I’m simply awful at French, but his tone was more than enough for me to get the gist. _Dreadful_ experience.” 

“Wow. Yeah,” mumbled Crowley, fighting through what seemed to be a bad case of sudden-onset lockjaw. Was he going rabid? Had he been bit by a bat without noticing during that show at the zoo the other week, and the symptoms were only manifesting now? “Got my own stuff. In the atrium, third cabinet on the left. Just through there.”

“Oh, _thank_ you,” said Aziraphale, smiling a blindingly white smile. “Wonderful to hear. It’s been bothering me.” With that, he turned and trotted off towards the atrium, humming something Baroque. 

Crowley attempted to calmly make his way back to the sofa to resume the meeting, but it ended up more of a stagger than a saunter. He collapsed down onto the cushions and tried to focus.

“Um. So... where were we?”

“Anathema Device,” Newt practically moaned. He was holding the photo up to his eye level, all the better to gaze lovingly at it, and Crowley could see a phone number written neatly on the back in black pen. 

“Newt, she gave you her number?”

Newt nodded, turning the photo to look at the digits scribbled there. 

“And you said she told you she wanted to meet me, right?”

He nodded again.

“And you want to see her again, yeah?”

This nod was, if a nod could be deemed such, infinitely infatuated.

“Alright. I want you to text her now and ask when’s best for her next week, then check her avails against my schedule.” 

Newt gaped. “But I _never_ text before twenty-four hours have passed! You’ve got to play hard to get, that’s what they say on the forums! That’s what I always do!”

“And, pray tell, has that _ever_ led to you keeping a girl around for longer than two weeks?”

Newt glared. It wasn’t a particularly effective or menacing glare, but Crowley could tell he was putting his heart into it, and decided to reward it with further badgering.

“Come on, Newt. Do it for me. Your boss, your friend, your loving mentor, who has taught you _so_ much about the ways of the world—”

“Fine, alright, alright,” Newt grumbled, cutting Crowley off before he could get to the really good bit about the pleasures of the flesh. The kid was getting too wise to his strategies; he’d have to change it up soon. 

With a sigh, Newt dug out his phone from his bag and began intently, if reluctantly, composing a missive. Over Newt’s shoulder, through the door and into the atrium, Crowley watched Aziraphale attempt to reckon with his fiddle-leaf fig plant. His rolled-up shirtsleeves had revealed sturdy forearms, and his face, tilting up as he misted the top of the plant, was clean-shaven and, quite possibly, well-moisturized. 

Crowley didn’t _need_ help with his plants, not in the least. He’d kept them alive and thriving for over a decade in that atrium, on a strict diet of fertilizer and discipline. But Mimi was a close friend of his late mother’s, practically an aunt, and when she’d started up her new plant business a few months back and was looking for new clients, he’d offered to sign up, simply so she could semi-truthfully boast on her website that her roster included a celebrity. 

And when she’d said she was taking a holiday to see family in Poland and not to worry, she was having a friend fill in for her, his plants would still get their weekly visit, Crowley couldn’t exactly just tell her not to bother with the substitute, because it wasn’t really the plant care he paid her for, but the company and her friendly face. 

Thus: the presence of the plump professorial stranger, who had now moved on to investigating Crowley’s variegated calathea. 

Newt was saying something. What was he saying?

“Sorry?” With great effort, Crowley forced his attention from the pale-haired alien with the watering can back to his personal assistant.

“Mr. Crowley! She’s texted back!” Newt repeated, waving his phone in front of Crowley’s face. “She wants to meet tomorrow morning, at her label’s office!” 

“ _Tomorrow?”_ said Crowley, suddenly regretting his enthusiasm. “That’s not— well, I mean, what’s the rush?” 

Newt looked like he was about to take Crowley to task for his indecision, but before he could, there came a crash of metal on stone, and a tremendous yelp: _“Aaah!!”_

Before he was even conscious of it, Crowley was rocketing up from his seat and sprinting towards the atrium, following the sound of the shriek. 

“What happened? Are you alright?!” he shouted as he came around the corner, with a bit more panic than intended.

Amidst the greenery, Aziraphale was standing in front of a tall and slightly tilted euphorbia cactus, shaking his hand and wincing. The watering can had fallen to the slate floor, its contents actively puddling at Aziraphale’s feet. 

“Have you got a first aid kit somewhere?” Aziraphale said, his pale forehead creased in a nervous frown as a tiny pinprick of blood welled up from his finger. “Antibiotic cream, a plaster—?”

“Er,” said Crowley, feeling rather like the captain of the Titanic when confronted with a certain issue regarding lifeboat quantity. “...No?” 

“Oh dear.” Pressing his other hand’s thumb and forefinger to the injured fingertip, Aziraphale swept past Crowley back into the living room, where Newt was watching with distant curiosity.

“I’d best hurry along, and get this looked at,” said Aziraphale rapidly, gathering up his jacket from the hook beside the door one-handed, “just a bit of a hypochondriac, don’t mind me, not your fault at all, can’t be helped, can’t be helped—” 

“Are— are you sure—?” said Crowley, hovering anxiously. The rabies theory was seeming less and less farfetched by the second. He had the awful feeling he was about to start foaming at the mouth. 

“What? Yes. Jolly good. Tickety-boo. Mind how you go— I mean. I’ll mind. How I go—” 

The heavy door swung shut on him mid-sentence.

Crowley, blinking, turned to Newt, who was looking just as puzzled as Crowley felt. 

“Well,” said Crowley, “that was a thing.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to songwriter Adam Schlesinger, who wrote "Way Back Into Love" for the original movie, and passed away on Wednesday from complications from coronavirus. in his memory, please go blast "Stacy's Mom," "That Thing You Do," or any of the dozens of other incredible songs he wrote in his prolific career 💖


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema’s attention was still on Crowley. She asked, “Do you believe in destiny?” 
> 
> Crowley turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “Absolutely not— no offense.”

The London offices of Anathema’s label were in the big Sony Music building out on Kensington High Street. Crowley and Newt took a quick Uber there from his flat the next day; the ride was just long enough for Crowley to refresh his memory by rewatching Anathema’s Grammy performance from the year before. It had stirred up an enormous amount of outrage online, with the direct result of “Magic (Cada Vez)” rocketing to number one on sixteen different global charts. 

Crowley wouldn’t have admitted it where anyone whose opinion he respected could hear, but the song was unbelievably catchy. A sultry reggaeton beat thrummed under pulsing synths, and above it all Anathema’s acrobatic voice soared effortlessly, even as she spun and danced with athletic abandon:

 _“Baby you make me feel like magic  
_ _Cada vez, cada vez  
_ _When you’re all up on me, that’s it  
_ _Cada vez, cada vez_

 _Nobody can tell  
_ _I cast a spell  
_ _Cause it’s natural to me_

 _Baby you make me feel like magic  
_ _Cada vez cada vez”_

She seemed like a nice girl. She certainly had a lot of fans, though whether they appreciated her for her music or for her other… _talents_ was a point he didn’t particularly feel like exploring. 

He’d wondered, of course, why Anathema wanted to meet him. Of course, he had to assume with stars that big they didn’t need to _have_ a reason— they got whatever they wanted, _when_ they wanted it. He remembered having that kind of power, practically beholden to a snap of his fingers. But his treacherously optimistic heart had started down a dangerous path of imagining some kind of offer— perhaps to join her band, or play support for a few shows, or maybe even cut some guest vocals on a remix of one of her songs. 

Despite the appeal of those concepts, however, there was the small but important fact that Anathema was the flagship artist of the label currently run by Lucie Ferris. Crowley had nearly panicked, thinking about walking into the office and running headfirst into an ambush. 

Luckily, Crowley never went into a full spiral unprepared, so when he’d pulled up Google to catch up on Lucie’s latest accolades, he’d been rewarded with the news, recently reported, that Ms. Ferris had purchased a 3.8 million dollar mansion in Los Angeles, where she’d moved to run Downstairs from their flagship Culver City office. 

_Thank fuck,_ Crowley had thought, relief flooding his body. _Now I can swagger in like I own the place, no chance of her sneaking up on me._

And he did precisely that, pushing open the tall glass doors of the lobby and strutting right in, breezy and confident with his hands in his pockets, as though he came through every day, as if it were 1997 all over again. 

Newt, jogging after him, let out a sigh of awe. He’d never been to a label office before— his travel opportunities had thus far been limited to Crowley’s dry cleaners, Crowley’s preferred specialty grocery store, and Crowley’s favorite guitar shop off Charing Cross.

“Wowww,” said Newt, gazing at the walls plastered with the recognizable faces of Sony’s top artists: Adele, Beyonce, John Legend, Vampire Weekend, Britney Spears. Crowley could’ve rolled his eyes, but he was kind of endeared. The innocence of youth, and all that. 

They checked in at the front desk, where the receptionist issued them sticky day-passes and told them to head up to the third floor. Crowley stuck his discreetly on the inside of his jacket; Newt pasted his directly in the center of his chest. 

Standing in front of the elevator, Newt turned to Crowley, tugging at his jumper sleeves. “Mr. Crowley? There’s something I ought to tell you. Before we go up.” 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“I, er. May have told Anathema when I met her that I— that, well, I— um. I told her I was your manager.” 

“Oh, bloody hell, kid, really?” Crowley groaned.

Newt nodded, wincing. Crowley had never thrown him against a wall and threatened him with bodily harm, but it was a testament to his general approach that the kid always seemed to believe he was on the verge of it. 

“And she _believed you!?”_

“I— I guess so!” Newt’s hands were up in helpless supplication. The elevator dinged its arrival, and the two of them stepped on. Crowley glared at Newt; the kid stared at his feet. 

“Fuck,” said Crowley, “She’s probably gone ahead and told her people that, too. Christ. Tell me the truth— you think you’ve learned enough in the past year to bluff yourself through an entire label meeting as my manager?”

Newt looked up at him, equal parts eager and guilty. “Oh, yeah, for sure.” 

“Well, I don’t, so here’s what I want you to do. Listen carefully, Newt.” Crowley leaned in, pressed a finger into Newt’s chest, and hissed, _“Don’t say a fucking word.”_

The elevator let them off on the third floor, and they emerged into the pristine reception area of Downstairs Records. A few moments later, an assistant with a raggedy outfit, funny hair and an awful lot of eyeliner came out and ushered them through the light-filled office and into a lounge-like meeting room, where a duo of Downstairs higher-ups were waiting to greet them. 

Bee Zabel, EVP of A&R at Downstairs, had a business-punk thing going on, with choppy black Joan Jett hair and a fashionably worn leather jacket. Crowley figured she’d either been a massive fan of his band as a teenager, or had been _really_ into Shawn Colvin and was now overcompensating. 

Her colleague Dagny Larson, Senior Director of A&R, was about a foot taller than her, with light ginger hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, wearing a perfectly-tailored blazer in a chic metallic blue that matched her pale eyes. 

Hands were shaken, seats were taken. Newt was looking around the lounge as if Anathema might pop out from behind the flatscreen television. 

Dagny, noting his antsiness, glanced at her watch, then towards the door. “Sorry,” she said to Newt, rather unconvincingly. “Anathema’s on her way, she’s just finishing up down the hall with the marketing people.” 

“No worries,” said Crowley. Newt offered a thankfully silent _it’s-all-good_ shrug and nod. 

“So. Anthony Crowley. How’s it going? Tell us about your career,” said Bee, settling back into her chair and folding her arms. 

“Sure,” said Crowley, ”what would you like to know?”

“Is it doing well?” asked Dagny. 

“Fantastically well,” said Crowley with a broad, convincing grin. Newt, next to him, nodded enthusiastically in agreement. 

“Haven’t heard much about you in a while,” said Bee. 

“Well, I’ve not gone anywhere, promise,” said Crowley. “You know how it is. This crazy business. Ups and downs, ups and downs!” He wondered if he was, perhaps, laying it on a bit too thick. 

“Is that so,” drawled Bee. 

“We just confirmed the Sunderland Illuminations for next month!” Newt warbled, and Crowley could’ve killed him. 

Crowley was saved from further embarrassment by the apparition, through the open door of the lounge, of a vision in black velvet.

Anathema Device was taller than Crowley had expected, and softer-seeming in person than her athletic performance on his iPhone screen might have indicated. She was certainly dressed down, compared to the skimpy, strappy outfit she’d worn in her Grammys performance. Her dress, a high-necked retro number, was cinched artfully at the waist with a braided blue belt, and her chest was draped in a half-dozen necklaces, strung with charms and crystals. She was wearing round-framed glasses that gave her an almost owlish look, and a worn leather satchel was casually slung over one shoulder. 

She could’ve been any fashionable Londoner he passed on the street, in that outfit— but the fact was, she absolutely _wasn’t._ She radiated, intensely and effortlessly, an impossible-to-ignore atmosphere of sheer _fame._ Heads would turn wherever she went; even people who didn’t know her name, who’d never heard one of her songs, would find themselves drawn to her, in compulsive adoration. The very universe itself would find ways to rearrange itself around her, to please her, to ease her way through a charmed life.

Crowley knew exactly what it felt like, that heady, intoxicating sense of power. It had been fifteen years since he’d last had it running through his veins, and that distance had brought clarity, acceptance, and calm, but the memory was still clear as ever. 

Something within him, even now, was vibrating in sympathy to Anathema’s presence. She was the same as him, somehow. 

(Which was not necessarily always a good thing to be.) 

Crowley jumped up from his seat to greet her. “Anathema, hey!”

“Mr. Crowley,” she said, her smile photo-perfect, “it’s an honor to meet you.” She shook his hand with a firm and confident grip. “Thank you for coming by on such short notice.”

“Oh, it was no problem at all,” said Crowley, “when my a— when my _manager_ told me he’d met you, I told him to reschedule _everything.”_

He snuck a glance back at Newt. The poor kid was, quite literally, drooling. Dagny was giving him the side-eye, perhaps idly contemplating a psychiatric diagnosis. God knows Crowley himself spent an awful lot of time contemplating the specific taxonomy of his assistant’s neuroses, as a way to pass the time.

“Mr. Crowley—” 

“Please, call me Crowley.”

“ _Crowley,_ the feeling is mutual. Your song ‘Catch Me Again’ was what made me first want to get up onstage, when I was seven years old.” 

“Oh, wow. Thank you,” said Crowley, meaning it. 

Anathema sat down lightly on the lounge’s pouf-like ottoman, her black skirt spreading out beneath her, and Crowley perched on the edge of the sofa, angling his whole body towards her in his most intent listening posture. 

She took a deep breath and sighed, staring off into the middle distance. Bee and Dagny were wearing twin looks of barely masked skepticism, waiting for her to speak, and Crowley was struck with an intense moment of deja vu. He’d been to label meetings like this before. Dozens of them, in those terrifying end times, and suddenly the connection he’d felt pulse between them made a great deal more sense. _Oh, Anathema. You’ve been asking questions, haven’t you?_

“My album is nearly done, and I’m… proud of the work that’s gone into it, but there’s still something missing. Something essential.” 

Crowley, nodded, his hand on his chin, wondering where this was all going. 

“I am so privileged to create music that brings joy and pleasure to peoples’ lives. Music they can dance to, party to, drink to… But these days, this world we live in, there’s so much that needs to be done, to ensure that this planet remains alive, remains a place where people can dance and party at all… You care about the planet, Crowley, don’t you?” 

“Oh, of course. Yeah. Big planet fan, me.” 

Anathema sighed. “Last Friday, I finished what I thought was the last song. I was overjoyed, exhausted, and ready to rest before my tour. But then that night, I went to sleep, and I had a dream. In my dream, my grandmother came to me, from the afterlife. And she whispered in my ear…”

Anathema stopped there, letting her sentence hang in the air. 

“Wh—what’d she say, Anathema?” squeaked Newt. 

“She said: _save the world.”_

Dagny let out a snort, and Bee elbowed her, hard. Anathema didn’t seem to notice. She was looking right at Crowley, and Crowley had the distinct sense his sunglasses weren’t getting in the way. She was _seeing_ him, all of him. 

“That is going to be the name of my new song, Crowley. _Save The World._ It’s going to be about love, and hope, and humanity, and I want _you_ to write it. And in two weeks, when I open my European tour at the O2, I want you to perform it with me.” 

“Oh— well— wow, Anathema, I—” Crowley had gone monosyllabic, his words stuttering into nonsense.

“What do _you_ think, Newt?” said Anathema, turning to the kid. “I’m sure Crowley has a busy schedule, but—” 

“He’ll do it!” yelped Newt. 

_This is humiliating,_ thought Crowley, but it wasn’t like he disagreed, so he forced a smile and said, “Of course, of course I’ll write you a song. That’d be— that’d be brilliant, Anathema.” 

“You’re in?” asked Bee. “Okay, great. We can set you up with topliners, co-producers, whoever you need.” She leaned forward to Newt and began discussing, in bored tones, the business details. Crowley hoped he was retaining literally any of it.

Anathema’s attention was still on Crowley. She asked, “Do you believe in destiny?” 

Crowley turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “Absolutely not— no offense.”

She smiled enigmatically. “Well, I do. Meeting your manager in the park yesterday was fate. I truly believe that you and I were meant to work together. There are things at work in this world, Crowley, forces larger than any one of us can comprehend individually. But when we come together, in collaboration, in friendship, in love… we achieve a higher level of understanding, and we have the power to change the things that we know need to be changed. As well as some of the things we don’t.”

There was a light chime; she pulled her phone from her satchel and looked at it. “Oh— I’ve got to get to my morning meditation session,” she said. “Time really flies when you’re manifesting your goals!” 

And with that, she swept from the room. Bee and Dagny exchanged a meaningful glance, loaded with implications that Crowley couldn’t quite grasp. It had been an awfully long time since he’d been party to the full brunt of industry politics. 24 hours ago he certainly hadn’t been expecting his Wednesday morning to include being thrust inelegantly into the middle of a war of A&R attrition, featuring a truly bonkers pop star and a pair of cutthroat businesswomen.

“The record’s getting sent for mastering in a week’s time,” said Bee, “so we need the demo by Thursday at midnight for approval. If it’s approved, you’ll cut final vocals on Monday at Abbey Road with Anathema.” 

“Wh— no, that can’t be right. A _week?_ Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you?” said Crowley. 

“I know it’s been a while since you’ve released anything,” said Dagny, with a humorless smile, “so I wouldn’t expect you to be up-to-date on our pipeline. When you’re going straight to digital, these days, it can get down to the wire.” 

Bee nodded. “And Anathema’s been rejecting song after song, looking for this ‘Save The World’ single of hers. Believe you me, we’ve got dozens of pitches that could be adapted— she was insistent it be a brand new song, written to spec.”

“But— why me?” Crowley was still struggling with the implications of what he’d just agreed to. 

“Well, Anathema’s a big fan,” Bee said, unsympathetically, as if it were a clinical scientific fact she knew to be true but couldn’t quite comprehend herself.

“Surely, on a project like this, there are other songwriters—”

“Oh, yes, there are other songwriters,” said Dagny. “Loads of ‘em, lined up out the door, to work with Anathema. So if you fail, don’t worry... we’re covered.”

“To tell you the truth, Crowley,” said Bee, with a glint in her eye that seemed almost mocking, “when it got out yesterday that Anathema wanted to give you this gig, we very nearly shot the idea down— all in the project’s best interests, of course. But then, word came from Lucie that she’s _very_ excited to hear what you come up with for this.” 

Crowley felt something uncomfortable and sharp unfurl in the pit of his stomach. _Of course. Of course it all comes back to fucking Lucie. It’s got to be some kind of sick power play. She wants to see me screw this up. Christ alive, I’m fucked._

“Mm,” he said, face a mask. “I— well. I’m excited too. But— it’s not really my scene, you know. I mean. Been a hot second.” 

Dagny smiled at Crowley. Her teeth seemed, in the fluorescent light of the lounge, to be unnaturally sharp. “Your scene,” she said. “Your starring role.” 

***

“Shit, shit, shit, _shit._ Why me?”

“You heard them,” said Newt, gleeful as anything as they wandered leisurely through Hyde Park back towards Crowley’s flat. “Anathema loves you. And all that stuff she was saying about _fate—_ do you really think I have a chance with her?” 

Crowley had stopped walking. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it, I changed my mind, I’m going to turn around, walk back in there, tell them no dice, she can go to Paul bloody Epworth for all I care—” 

“Hey! No!” Newt grabbed Crowley by the arm and spun him around on the spot. “You need this. _We_ need this, Mr. Crowley,” he pleaded. The look on his face said, _I need this,_ but as a credit to the kid he didn’t say it out loud. 

“But— look, I haven’t written a song in _years._ And I can’t write lyrics, I need to work with a lyricist, and it’s never _ever_ worked with anyone except Lucie.” 

“You could call her up?” 

Crowley barked a guttural non-laugh. “She’s busy. Let’s leave it at that.” 

“Well, Bee said she’d have Dagny send over a list of the people available on short notice... I’m sure there’ll be someone wonderful to work with for you...?” 

With a sigh, Crowley gave in. “Yes, and I had to let you give them _your_ email, so give me your phone.” 

“What?”

“Phone. Give. Now.” 

Newt reluctantly handed over his phone. Crowley unlocked it and refreshed the kid’s inbox, scrolling through the email from Downstairs re: the writing sessions. 

“Why can’t I—” whined Newt, but Crowley cut him off. 

“Just because they _think_ you’re my manager, doesn’t mean you actually _are._ You’ve got to _earn_ that, kid.” 

Newt’s mouth set into a hard line, and he folded his arms. Crowley thought, perhaps a little too late, that he’d just created a monster.

***

“I’m sorry,” said Crowley, “I’m— look, it’s been a while since I’ve done this. I’m just— warming up here, y’know?” 

“If you don’t like the lyrics, there’s no need to beat around the bush.” 

“Yeah, mate. We can handle criticism. We’re _professionals.”_

Hastur & Ligur — Crowley had read their real names on Wikipedia and proceeded to forget them immediately — were a topliner duo, fresh off a run of hits for Clean Bandit and Dua Lipa. They happened to be available on short notice on a Wednesday due to Sigrid coming down with bronchitis and cancelling their scheduled session. 

Crowley was sitting at his recording console, where an 8-bar loop of stock 4/4 drums was pounding away at 130 bpm, per the pitch brief Bee had sent Newt. 

Hastur, the tall one, was scribbling new lyrics down in a notebook, while Ligur, the short one, stared intently at him, as though transmitting melodic information telepathically. 

“Try this, a half-step up,” said Hastur insistently after a moment, handing over the notebook, “and go to the five instead of the four on line three.” He hummed a demonstration, waving his hand illustratively. 

Crowley squinted at the lyrics on the paper, strummed his guitar along to the drum loop and sang:

 _“Baby I’m a bad girl  
_ _I never learned to stop  
_ _Get me on the counter  
_ _Make that body pop_

 _You’re so fucking crazy  
_ _But I’m positively sure  
_ _When you touch me I feel like  
_ _We could save the world—”_

He broke off, hitting the space bar on his keyboard to halt the drum loop. “No, no, sorry. I’m not— I don’t think it’s quite working.”

“ _You’re_ giving it the wrong vibe,” Ligur supplied emphatically. “Needs more bass. More oomph. This isn’t a West End musical—”

_Knock, knock._

“Just a moment, lads,” said Crowley, propping his guitar up in its stand. Getting up, he could hear the two bastards muttering to themselves behind his back— probably taking cheap shots at the dramatically posed Morningstar posters framed behind the console. 

He swung open the door, and was greeted once more with a vision in beige.

“Hullo,” said Aziraphale, with another one of those little waves. He had a plaster around one finger, which Crowley noted with a smirk as he waved the man inside. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” said Aziraphale, with a pout. “It could very well have gotten infected, and then I’d have to take you all the way to the High Court for negligence.” 

He took off his coat, and spotted Hastur and Ligur sitting in the armchairs. “Oh, good morning,” he said kindly, waving again. “Pay me no mind whatsoever. Don’t let me interrupt your creative flow.”

Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s coat off the sofa, and hung it up again on the hook. “I’ll just fetch the supplies,” said Aziraphale, “third cabinet on the left, don’t tell me— and finish up what I missed in there, back in here to do the rest and out of your hair in no time.” 

Hastur stared with deep confusion at Aziraphale’s retreating form. “Who the hell is that?” 

“Ambassador from Alpha Centauri,” said Crowley, sitting back down at the console and picking up his guitar again. “Look, here, let’s get back to the song, I think I’ve got it now—” 

He tried the melody again, modifying a few of the chords, but the lyrics still stuck like caulk in his throat, and he tripped over his own arpeggiations. It was rather a mess, but even in the depths of self-doubt he knew it wasn’t _his_ fault, it was these bloody lyrics. 

“What is it exactly you’re looking for, mate? Something less edgy? _”_ Hastur scowled.

“Need to sand it down a bit for you, do we?” grumbled Ligur. 

“No, no, it’s not that,” said Crowley uselessly. He’d _known_ this was a lost cause, he’d known this wouldn’t work without the only person he’d ever matched with creatively in his whole sorry life, why on Earth was he still fucking _trying?_

Aziraphale wandered in from the atrium, and began watering the plants that dotted the parlor. Crowley thought about how he’d much rather be just sitting there admiring the odd little man’s mediocre watering technique than doing his actual job of writing a goddamn song, and then decided maturely not to pursue that thought any further. 

“Look,” said Ligur, “it’s very simple. You’re just making it too much of a production. ‘Baby I’m a bad girl, I never learned to stop…’” 

_“... I wish that I was wiser, so that you’d forget-me-not…”_

Crowley straightened up. “What was that?”

Aziraphale turned around, emerging from his lean over Crowley’s aspidistra. “Er. I’m not quite sure…?” 

“I think you said, _I wish that I was wiser, so that you’d forget-me-not._ That’s… that’s rather good, actually,” said Crowley, rubbing at his chin. 

“Really?” laughed Hastur in disbelief. “Christ, I knew you were washed up, but I hadn’t expected you go in for that kind of amateur pash.” 

“Oh, come on,” said Crowley. “It’s inventive, it’s clever!” 

“How’s the rest of it go, then?” Ligur asked Aziraphale with a sneer, folding his arms. “You’re so clever, plant man, _you_ finish off the verse, eh?” 

Aziraphale had gone bright red. “If you don’t mind, I’m just here to attend to the greenery,” he said, turning back to the aspidistra.

Crowley made a desperate sort of apologetic noise, trying wordlessly to distance himself from the two brutish gits taking up space in _his_ home studio. Luckily, they seemed to have a similar idea, and much less trouble expressing it. 

“This is a waste of our bloody time,” Hastur said. “Come on, man, let’s go. If we ping Dagny now and tell her this was a bust, maybe she can score us that afternoon slot at the Little Mix camp.” 

“Yeah, we’re done,” said Ligur, and they grabbed their bags and hauled themselves out of Crowley’s armchairs. 

Then Aziraphale turned around again, as they passed him on the way to the door. His eyes were animated with inspiration:

“ _Maybe you could teach me  
_ _All the secrets that you heard_  
 _Because I have a theory  
That we could save the world.” _

Ligur looked like he was about to throw up. Hastur spat, “What’s next? _‘Near, far, wherever you are?’_ You people disgust me.”

Then the terrible twosome were gone with the soft, weighted _whoosh_ of the door, and Aziraphale was standing there, looking horribly guilty. 

“I am _so_ sorry,” he said. “It was very rude of me to have ruined your— er— musical meeting like that, I just get carried away sometimes, I hardly have a filter, it’s an abhorrent trait—” He turned abruptly and headed back to the atrium. 

“No— no, listen, Aziraphale, it’s fine,” said Crowley, jumping up from his seat to follow after Aziraphale. “Look, I just wanted to ask you— have you ever done any writing?” 

“We are all writers, in our own ways,” Aziraphale said obliquely, putting away the mister and fertilizer in the cabinet, “writing the stories of our lives, every day as we move through the world.” 

“You _know_ that’s not what I meant.” 

“Well, if you must know, I do a bit of copywriting,” said Aziraphale reluctantly, not looking Crowley in the eye as he walked past him back out into the living room. “Advertisements and slogans and such, for my sister’s business, she runs a crystal shop in Brixton.” 

“Have you heard of the band Morningstar?”

“I’m afraid not, sorry. I’m not much for modern music.”

 _Obviously,_ thought Crowley, _given your, you know, everything._ But he persisted. “Um— ever hear of Anathema Device, the pop star?” 

At this, surprisingly, Aziraphale’s face brightened. “Oh! Yes, I have, actually,” he said, and Crowley was struck with the awful thought, like a knife in his gut just about to twist, that Aziraphale was going to say something about how he was happily married, and his wife and daughter were big fans, and Crowley was going to have to deal with the fact that his gaydar had somehow gone rogue in the last few years since he’d had the wherewithal to utilize it, and then he’d have to recontextualize his whole self-image, and he didn’t have _time_ for that, he had a full pop ballad demo to start, finish, and turn in in the next two days.

But then Aziraphale said, “My sister is fostering a darling little girl, she can’t get enough of that Anathema lady. Learns her dances and everything, it’s utterly charming,” and Crowley’s nerves returned to the state of gentle fizz that had occupied them since Aziraphale entered his flat. 

A niece. Fine, then. Crowley liked kids. Wait, why was he assuming he’d ever meet this child? He was getting _way_ ahead of himself. 

He refocused: “Good, good— well, I’m a musician—” _obviously you’re a musician, you’ve got a bloody great wall of guitars, he does have eyes, Crowley —_ “and I’ve been asked to write a song for her new album. I’d— love to talk to you about writing some lyrics with me, if you’d be interested.” 

Aziraphale blinked. For a moment Crowley thought he might break out into that blinding grin of his and agree right there, and they’d spend the rest of the afternoon writing the most brilliant song the world had ever known, but of course that would’ve been too easy. 

“Oh, no, I’m afraid I can’t— I’ve got to go now, Tracy’s expecting me at the shop— thank you so much for the _very_ kind offer, Mr. Crowley, thank you—” 

Crowley felt like an idiot, chasing him out into the hallway and down towards the elevator, but that, apparently, was what he was doing. 

“Those lyrics, you came up with them on the spot, right? I _really_ think you and I could—” 

“No.” 

“—Look, are you sure? I think working together would be—” 

“No! I am _not_ interested,” said Aziraphale, jabbing at the down elevator button repeatedly, avoiding Crowley’s eyes. “I’m sorry, dear boy, that was a bit harsh, but I really can’t, you know, no cause of yours, I assure you, again, thank you so much—” 

And then the elevator doors closed, and Aziraphale was gone. 

Crowley leaned against the wall, wishing Newt was around so he could order the kid to slap him in the face. _Came on too strong, like you always do. Fucked it up, like you always do._

He looked down at his extremely expensive watch. The song was due in less than three days, and he had nothing. No lyrics, no lyricist, no luck. 

Lucie was going to have a field day. 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morningstar’s sound is very influenced by Echobelly, Suede, that dog., and Elastica, and I imagine Anathema as a mix of Rosalia, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, and Camila Cabello. 
> 
> “You people disgust me” is [a line from the movie.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kJREmteg2o&feature=youtu.be)
> 
> **A &R:** Artists & Repertoire. A catch-all term for the department at a record label that decides which artists to sign, which songs get put on an artist’s album, which songwriters and producers an artist might work with, and which songs get promoted/released as singles. 
> 
> **Topliner:** A type of songwriter who specializes in melodies and lyrics, or sometimes just melodies. They write the “top line” of the song that goes over the instrumental track, which is created by a producer. A producer might be a songwriter, but not all songwriters are producers.
> 
> _Famous topliners: Ester Dean, Julia Michaels_  
>  _Famous producer-songwriters: Max Martin, Greg Kurstin_  
>  _Famous producers: Rick Rubin, George Martin_
> 
>  **Songwriter agreement:** A legal document drawn up by a label that dictates the terms of a songwriter or producer’s hire, and how the credit and royalties will be split on the song. Usually includes a separate LOD, letter of direction, that needs to be filed in order to collect a specific type of music royalty. 
> 
> **Pitch brief:** A document, usually sent out by labels, that tells songwriters what kind of songs an artist is seeking for a particular project. Can proscribe tempo, mood, style, lyrical content, and/or target radio formats.
> 
>  **Camp:** A songwriting camp is a multi-day event in which a large group of songwriters and producers are brought together by A&Rs and managers to come up with dozens of potential songs for a specific artist.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley turned to Tracy. “Did you know your brother was a poet? Is this, you know, a thing? Please tell me it’s a thing.” 

**New Message (1)**

**1:34pm  
** **Maybe: Crowley**

hey, this is crowley. i got your number from mimi. sorry about being weird earlier.   
but i’m still looking for a lyricist— it’s pretty urgent— so if there’s any chance you change your mind, i’m playing at the park lane hilton tonight 8pm. come by, we can talk.  
ciao x

***

“And this will realign my chakras, and get rid of this cough?” the woman with the pink hair said, frowning down at the thirty-quid chunk of lavender quartz she’d laid out on the counter. 

“Yes, it most certainly will, my dear, take my word for it,” Aziraphale forced himself to say, with a brittle smile. Writing slogans and product descriptions for Tracy’s advertisements was all well and good, but actually having to _sell_ the stuff to customers, live and in person, was a different animal entirely. It made him feel horrendously guilty, for one, and unlike his witty, fluent copy, his salesmanship was barely half-decent.

Tracy’s hands were full with Pepper these days, though; she could hardly run the place by herself anymore, and it wasn’t as if Aziraphale had anywhere else to be. Besides, he needed the money, and he very much needed to keep busy, keep his mind off things. And certainly, promulgation of pseudoscientific tomfoolery was morally unsound, but it was all relative— the stuff seemed to make the customers very happy, happy enough to return week after week to pick up more of it, and in these tumultuous times, wasn’t it important for folks to have their little pleasures? 

When the woman had gone, taking her new fancy rock with her, Aziraphale checked his pocketwatch — an affectation, but a long-standing one — and noted with a sigh of relief that it was half past five. Technically, the shop was open until six on Thursdays, but foot traffic on the street had dropped precipitously since they opened up the big new shopping center a few blocks away, so he was nearly sure there’d be nobody coming in. There was the most wonderful used bookshop down the block, closing at six as well, and if he locked up now, he could spend just a little time there before heading back to Tracy’s flat. 

_Little pleasures,_ thought Aziraphale, sighing happily as he stepped inside the shop. The owner, a grouchy, wiry man who looked about a hundred years old, glared at him with unalloyed dislike; the stacks of books crowded in every corner looked as if they were due to tip over at any moment. It was _wonderful._

Normally, a good linger amidst the cramped and musty shelves of the place would be all Aziraphale needed to soothe whatever discomfort he’d accumulated throughout the day. But even as he ran his fingers down the spines of the poetry section, picking out a slim volume of Auden to take home for an indulgent, inadvisable £15, the anxious hum of his nerves refused to settle. Like a skipping record, his thoughts kept coming back to Crowley. 

_It’s inventive, it’s clever. I really think you and I could—_

No. _No._ The man was a total stranger, some kind of has-been rockstar, eccentric and oily and junkie-thin, and whatever he wanted with Aziraphale, Aziraphale was certainly better off not getting involved. 

(Nevermind how easy he’d been to talk to, how comfortable Aziraphale had felt in his posh modern flat, how nice he’d been to look at—)

“You closed early again so you could go to that bookshop, didn’t you,” said Tracy, immediately upon Aziraphale’s entrance back at their flat. He’d hidden away his purchase inside his leather briefcase, and hadn’t arrived a minute before he usually would’ve, had he kept the shop open until six, but somehow she knew. She always knew. 

“And what if I did?” he said lightly. 

“Bad Aziraphale!” Pepper shouted from the sofa where she was sprawled, a video-game controller clutched in her hands. Her friend from next door, Adam, was there too, his paint-squid-alien fighting her paint-squid-alien on the big television Tracy had gotten installed just for her.

“You’re an absolute menace,” said Tracy, leaning up to give him a peck on the cheek. “I’d best sack you now, get out ahead of trouble.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

“I would, and I will!” 

There was food laid out on the table, but Aziraphale felt too jumpy to take a seat. He paced behind the sofa, his eyes catching the wholly unparseable computer-generated action on the television screen before falling on one of Pepper’s magazines, lying open on the coffee table. _ANATHEMA’S UNIVERSE_ , the headline said in big bright bubble letters, above the picture of a girl with perfect skin and dark hair, microphone in hand, striking an acrobatic pose in a skimpy outfit. Her eyes were clear and determined, the rings on her fingers glinting supernaturally on the glossy page. 

Aziraphale nearly jumped when he felt Tracy’s hand on his shoulder. 

“Aziraphale, what’s gotten into you? Come on, sit down, eat!” 

Aziraphale sighed and turned, rubbing distractedly at his hair. “I had a bit of an odd day,” he admitted.

“Oh, dear. What was it this time? That shouty man coming in the shop again, disturbing the peace? I did tell you, next time it happens you ought to call the police!” 

“No, not him, thank God.” Aziraphale took a deep breath, coming around to the table and leaning, still restless, against the back of a chair. “Okay— you know I’ve been covering for Mimi while she’s in Poland, right?”

“Yes, that’s right, doing her plants. So kind of you.” 

“Well, today I was at the flat of this man, er, Anthony Crowley, I think his name was, some kind of musician, and he had some people over, working on a song, I suppose, and I—” 

But he didn’t get any further into his story before Tracy’s hands were on his shoulders, practically shaking him into silence. “You’re kidding! You lunatic, of _course_ you— oh, you’re having me on, _the_ Anthony Crowley, from Morningstar?!” 

“Ah— er, yes, he did— mention that name, now that I think about it—” 

Tracy nearly swooned. Aziraphale put a hand out to steady her. “I had no idea you were such a fan,” he said, bemused. 

“Of course you didn’t,” she tsked, fanning herself with an excited hand while still managing to cast him a judgmental look. “While you were away at uni, oh, I adored them! Could never afford a ticket, but I had all their records, posters on the walls, _ooh_ that Anthony was a looker—” Aziraphale coughed, very pointedly not meeting Tracy’s eyes— “but _please_ don’t tell me if he did something terrible to you, I couldn’t stand finding out he’s actually a tosser, I know all those rockers always are, but he always seemed so _nice,_ and so talented too—” 

“He didn’t,” Aziraphale assured her. “He was very polite. Um. He actually invited me to come see him perform tonight—” 

Tracy’s jaw dropped. “Then what are we doing _here,_ you old silly?” 

“I’m— well, I wasn’t—” Aziraphale tried, but he couldn’t come up with an excuse on the spot that wouldn’t invite immediate sisterly mockery. 

“Get your coat, we’re leaving!” crowed Tracy. “Ooh, I can’t believe I’m going to get to meet _Anthony Crowley—_ I _knew_ today was going to be a good day, the moon’s in Libra and it’s all coming up Tracy!”

“But we can’t— I mean, what about Pepper—” 

“Adam!” shouted Tracy heartily, and Pepper’s friend paused the game and poked his head up above the side of the sofa. 

“Yeah, Ms. Fell?”

“Is your sister home?”

“I think so, why—”

“Be a dear, and give her a text, see if she can come over to watch you two. We won’t be gone long at all, swear on my life and my brother’s!” 

Tracy bustled around in a whirlwind of energy, dinner on the table all but forgotten, reapplying her scarlet lipstick in the mirror by the door and enveloping herself in a cloud of hairspray as she readjusted her curls. Aziraphale reluctantly re-donned his jacket, glancing longingly at his briefcase, where his new poetry book was still lying in state. He’d so been looking forward to settling in with a nice cup of cocoa and diving in.

By the time Tracy was ready to go, Sarah Young had come round from next door, Adam groaning from the sofa at this imposition. “You _can’t_ have a go at Splatoon, so don’t even ask,” he whined at her, and in response she silently snatched Pepper’s magazine off the coffee table and plopped down to immerse herself in ANATHEMA’S UNIVERSE. 

“I don’t know about this, Tracy,” said Aziraphale, fiddling with the buttons on his jacket as he lingered by the front door of the flat.

“Aziraphale,” said Tracy seriously, swinging the door open for him, “when was the last time you left the flat? Not for work, not for errands— for _fun.”_

Aziraphale frowned, thinking back. 

“Thought so,” Tracy sighed, when he took too long to answer. “You really need to get out more. Starting _now!_ ” 

***

The National Pharmaceutical Forum, taking place that week at London’s Park Lane Hilton, was full to the brim with doctors of a certain age, whose fondness for Morningstar was closely linked to dearly treasured memories of getting shitfaced in scummy uni bars, dancing all night instead of studying, before their world took a turn for the serious and their lives became prescription pads and pill bottles. 

The ballroom where Crowley was performing was deep in the bowels of the hotel, and Aziraphale and Tracy stumbled into multiple wedding receptions and one exceedingly rowdy bar mitzvah before finally finding the right doors. 

By the time they stepped inside, the show was in full swing. Past circular tables cluttered with emptied plates from the earlier banquet, an assembled crowd of tipsy pharma professionals cheered and hollered as, up on the stage, a skinny man with an electric guitar crooned into the microphone. There was no band, but a loud instrumental backing track was playing— presumably being controlled by the young man Aziraphale had met that first morning at Crowley’s flat, who was standing off to the side of the stage working some kind of sound board. 

Aziraphale didn’t have much of an ear for rock and roll, but he certainly knew it when he heard it. And this was certainly _it,_ driving and dreamy and insistent, pressing itself into his eardrums with all the brash confidence he knew Crowley, from their short interactions, to be capable of. The man’s voice was clear and strong, mid-ranged with just a touch of appealing throatiness, giving it an almost tactile dimensionality. 

_“Hold on to yourself  
_ _Till you just can’t breathe  
_ _Open my mouth let you see what’s inside me_

 _I’m not over the things that you said  
_ _You could take it back, get into my head_

 _But I know you won’t, it’s not like you  
_ _I can play this game too_

 _Cause I’ve got a demon heart  
_ _And it looks like you’ve got one as well  
_ _It might hurt but it might not  
_ _So I’ll take my chances in hell”_

Tracy naturally pushed her way closer to the front of the crowd, but Aziraphale lingered near the entrance, watching from a distance as Crowley strummed through his greatest hits. 

On the way over, Tracy had chattered away about Morningstar, and how there’d been a girl in it, a tiny blonde thing who’d played bass and sung half of the lyrics, but Aziraphale really couldn’t imagine the use in someone else taking up space on a stage already occupied by Anthony Crowley. Even playing at this uselessly dull event, on a low stage built for boring lectures, he was magnetic— the crowd, transported by the power of his voice back to their youth, waved their arms, danced, shouted along. For just a moment, they were miles away from their days spent in offices and labs, their tired evenings cooking, cleaning, watching the kids. 

When he stepped away from the mic to play a solo, in the middle of a song that based on the lyrics was likely called “Stars Were Mine,” he took on the aspect of a man twenty years younger, whipping his guitar around with agility and ease like it was an extension of his body. Aziraphale was a bit too far away to see the movements of Crowley’s fingers as they fretted the neck, fluttered his pick around the strings— probably a good thing, really— but the notes, as they floated towards Aziraphale’s vantage point in the back of the room, fit perfectly against each other, a woven tapestry of electric melody.

Eventually, though it felt at moments like it never would, the set ended; the crowd began to disperse and Aziraphale waited for Tracy to wander back towards him. He supposed— _hoped—_ they’d be leaving then, but instead Tracy put her hand to his back and pushed him along to where a small gaggle of die-hard well-wishers crowded around Crowley as he stepped offstage. Aziraphale barely had time to avert his gaze before Crowley spotted him, over the heads of the fans.

He looked surprised to see Aziraphale, which wasn’t unexpected. Aziraphale _had_ been quite brusque with him earlier, and then hadn’t even graced his text with a response. The height of rudeness; Crowley would have been quite justified in going right from surprise to a scowl and then turning away.

Instead, he lifted his sunglasses and mouthed, _“Aziraphale?”_

Aziraphale, worried anything he said wouldn’t be heard over the noise of the ballroom, gave one of his instinctual waves. This had the unforeseen effect of tugging Crowley forward; he wove his way heedlessly through the group of fans towards Aziraphale and Tracy, with Newt trailing behind him. 

Tracy started chattering away to Crowley as he came over, complimenting his set, gushing over his catalog, all lipsticked grin and cheeky questions. 

“I’m Newt,” said the young man, turning to Aziraphale. “Crowley’s Personal Assistant.” 

“Yes, I recall,” said Aziraphale lightly. “Listen, Tracy, we really ought to get going, mustn’t leave Sarah with the children for too long—” 

But Tracy wasn’t listening; she was too busy snapping a round of lurid selfies, cheek to cheek with Crowley, who looked, like most people coming into contact with Tracy for the first time, rather liked he’d been hit with a lavender-scented bus. 

Aziraphale had, just hours earlier, been perfectly at peace with his decision to not text Crowley back, to not see him again once Mimi was back from Poland, to forget all about the strange intensity of their encounter and file it away, perhaps, as just another odd day living life as a Londoner. 

But now, Crowley standing in front of him, nodding away to Tracy’s one-sided stream-of-consciousness conversation, Aziraphale sighed, something inside him falling below a critical threshold. At the very least, they might be able to be friends. Tracy was right— he really did need to get out of the flat more. 

“Listen,” he said, touching Crowley lightly on the shoulder, “I do apologize for earlier. I admit I was a bit cryptic, but I _was_ very flattered by your offer, I absolutely was, just— a bit overwhelmed, you see. And I’m no songwriter, wouldn’t dare pretend to be, that’s all.” There— that felt much better. 

“What offer?” piped up Newt, the picture of innocent curiosity. 

“Aziraphale came back today, when those idiots Crabbe and Goyle the label sent over were attempting to ply their trade,” Crowley said. “He spouted a couple really wonderful lines— I asked him to come write lyrics with me for Anathema’s song.” 

“Oh,” said Newt. “That’s wonderful. Do you want me to add him to your schedule—?” he began, hand automatically going for his phone in his pocket, but Aziraphale put up his hands. 

“No, that won’t be necessary, Newt,” he said. “I turned the offer down.” 

“Oh. Right…” said Newt, looking questioningly at Crowley. 

“I don’t know why you can’t just write your own lyrics,” Aziraphale blurted. “Those songs you played tonight were— really wonderful.” 

Aziraphale couldn’t see Crowley’s eyes behind his shades, but he had the sensation of Crowley’s gaze leaving him, darting elsewhere, at his shoes, perhaps, or out back towards the stage. “Mm. Well. Didn’t write those lyrics, see. Lucie did.” 

Oh. Of course. The girl in his old band. Aziraphale immediately felt awful for bringing it up, but then Crowley sighed and smiled resignedly, no offense apparently taken. “I’m utter shit at words, if you must know,” he said, a hint of playfulness in his voice. “I once tried to rhyme _your face_ with _car chase._ ” 

“But— that’s not bad at all,” said Aziraphale. “Er. _I want to slow down to look at your face / but I can’t stop, my heart’s on a car chase…”_

“See?!” gaped Crowley. “That’s what I’m _talking_ about! Go on— finish the verse, Aziraphale!” 

Aziraphale’s mind and mouth conspired together against his better instincts, as he spoke out loud: “ _If I don’t hit the brakes I’ll crash... But I just can’t help that I like to go fast...?_ ” 

Crowley turned to Tracy. “Did _you_ know your brother was a poet? Is this, you know, a thing? Please tell me it’s a thing.” 

Tracy broke into a proud beam, and immediately a klaxon went off in Aziraphale’s head. _Absolutely not._ Off a rush of pure anxious adrenaline, Aziraphale found himself snatching Tracy bodily away from his new friend before she could say anything, tugging her urgently towards the exit. 

“Thank you again for the invitation, lovely to see you, wonderful show, we’ve got to be off, children at home, you know, we can’t keep them waiting.”

Tracy was staring daggers at him, but Aziraphale’s crusade was unstoppable, and he glared right back. “Hang on a minute,” Crowley tried, but Aziraphale was quick with a curt “Lovely to see you!” before turning around and hustling Tracy right out of the ballroom. 

Aziraphale, his back turned, was unaware of the way Crowley’s hand reached out as if to stop him, before falling limply back to his side, and he was certainly unaware of the look on Crowley’s face as the door swung shut. 

***

Tracy was working the counter of the shop the next morning, and Aziraphale was in the back office, typing up a florid paragraph about the metaphysical protective properties of pyrite for that month’s catalogue. 

He was listening to a lovely recording of _Don Giovanni_ as he worked, and in the comfortable silence between songs when one aria came to an end, he heard talking coming from beyond the door to the shop proper.

“Do you really believe that?” a familiar voice was saying, and immediately Aziraphale’s hand flew to the stereo, quickly pausing the record before the next song started.

“Ah, that’s not the right question to ask,” Tracy’s voice said cheerily. “Doesn’t matter what _I_ believe, does it? I can tell you all about the properties of each crystal, how they interact with each other and with the stars and planets, but at the end of the day it’s about what _you_ believe. If you’re not sure, I’m sure I could fit in a palm reading for you, at a discount...”

“Ha. Nice try. Listen, is Aziraphale in?”

It was Crowley. Crowley was _here._ He’d tracked Aziraphale down— how could he have tracked him down—?! Then Aziraphale remembered, with a suppressed groan, that he’d _told_ Crowley just the other day about Tracy’s shop. He hadn’t gone into much detail, yes, but there were only two crystal shops in the neighborhood, and it would’ve been fairly easy for Crowley to figure out that the hyper-minimalist shop a few blocks over with the corporate-looking logo, techno soundtrack, and highly millennial aesthetic was _not_ the one owned and operated by the middle-aged woman in the floral shawl he’d met the previous night. 

Aziraphale stood up, suddenly deeply conscious of the frayed edges of his careworn cardigan and the scuffed toes of his third-best pair of loafers. 

“I’ll go fetch him, dear, will just be a moment, he’s _in the zone,_ as they say,” came Tracy’s voice from the shop, and as Aziraphale approached the door of the office, it flung itself open to reveal his sister, who was giving him A Look.

“Anthony Crowley is here to see you,” she said, her eyebrows providing multiple additional layers of meaning only discernible via the semi-telepathic nature of their familial bond, such as _What on earth have you gotten yourself into this time, Aziraphale,_ and _You owe me a very long explanation over a very large bottle of wine later._

“Yes, I— I did hear,” said Aziraphale. 

They both stood there a moment, neither moving. Then Tracy sighed, leaned forward, grabbed Aziraphale’s lapels, and practically pulled him out of the office. He stumbled into the shop, and momentum drove him past the sales counter towards the display rack full of ammonites and amethysts that Crowley was lingering in front of, his hands thrust awkwardly in the pockets of his tight jeans. 

As Aziraphale approached Crowley spun around, a barely contained smile spreading across his angular face. He had something large and heavy strapped to his back— not a backpack, no, but long and bulky and oddly shaped. A guitar case—?!

“Hi,” said Aziraphale, but before he could even ask Crowley to what he owed the pleasure, the man was babbling at him. 

“Listen. Listen, I just need one minute. _One_ minute of your time. Work with me here, I’m embarrassing myself, I know I am, but please, hear me out.” 

Even one as strong-willed as Aziraphale couldn’t resist the sheer vulnerability of Crowley’s temptation. He looked wonderfully desperate— or perhaps even desperately wonderful.

“Alright, go on,” Aziraphale relented, and Crowley sprang into graceful movement like a coiled spring let loose, swinging the case on his back around to his front and unzipping it. 

Like a butterfly from a cocoon, a sleek shape emerged, wide and black and lacquered— a guitar, but not the electric one he’d played last night at the hotel. This one was larger, hollow-bodied, with a red ring of sparkling inlay around the sound hole. 

“Alright, don’t say anything, just— just listen, will you? I want you to hear this.” And then Crowley plucked at the strings, and sang: 

“ _I want to slow down, look at your face  
_ _But I can’t stop, my heart’s on a car chase_

 _If I don’t hit the brakes I’ll crash  
_ _But I can’t help it, I like to go fast_

 _Oooh, ooh  
_ _Car chase heart  
_ _Oooh, ooh  
_ _Car chase heart”_

Aziraphale realized, as the last strum of Crowley’s guitar rang out in the shop, that he really ought to say something. His hands, fluttering in excitement, found their way to his heart. “That was… Crowley, that was spectacular. Good lord, that _melody—_ ” 

Crowley grinned. “Don’t you see?! You’re a born lyricist, Aziraphale!” 

Aziraphale’s hands dropped to his sides, and he looked away, down to the carpeted floor of the shop. “Crowley, I have never written a song before in my life.”

“You’re a rotten liar, with an awful short-term memory to boot,” Crowley said, “I just _played_ you a song that you wrote.” He strummed his guitar for emphasis, singing a bar of that lovely _ooh, ooh_ over top of the chord.

“Well…” dithered Aziraphale. “I don’t know…” 

Crowley’s eyebrows, above his shades, had risen in twin pleas. “Come on. It’s just one song. And if we can’t make it work, then hey, no harm done. You won’t owe me anything, you can forget all about it. Go back to spraying plants. And, er, crystal-ing. Or whatever it is you do here. How’s that sound?” 

Aziraphale flicked a glance around the shop, as if there were a studio audience hidden away somewhere, poised for applause and confetti once he gave his reply. But no, there was only Tracy off in the back of the shop, pretending to be busy rearranging the geode shelf as she eavesdropped. 

“If you put it that way,” said Aziraphale slowly, and Crowley was coiled-tense and anticipatory, “I suppose I don’t really have an excuse, do I?” 

“That a yes, then?” 

“Yes, alright,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley’s tension instantly released, in a kind of aborted move forward towards him that didn’t take into account the guitar still strapped to his chest. He awkwardly transformed it into an extended hand that Aziraphale took to shake, managing a nervous smile. 

_Me, a songwriter,_ he thought. _Well, I’ll be damned._

***

Aziraphale had been to Crowley’s flat before, of course, but when he stepped inside that afternoon, it felt different somehow. 

Perhaps it was that he was entering _with_ Crowley, not knocking and being let in by him. Perhaps it was that there was nobody else there, no Personal Assistant or bad-tempered songwriter duo. Or perhaps it was just a premonition of the strange endeavor he was about to embark on— like the scent in the air before a storm, the gentle buzz of his skin a prelude to the lightning, about to leap down from the sky, scorch the ground and leave an indelible trace. 

Crowley hung his coat up and Aziraphale’s too, and motioned for him to take a seat in one of the intimidating grey armchairs arranged in a sort of parlor formation around the studio area. 

On the large computer screen that stood above the complicated-looking console desk, Crowley pulled up a YouTube playlist of Anathema Device’s greatest hits, in order to get Aziraphale acquainted with the artist they were currently on commission for. 

“This is all very… _modern,_ isn’t it? _”_ said Aziraphale, watching Anathema gyrate expertly amidst a crowd of backup dancers to a syncopated, squealing beat. 

Crowley made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough. “Could say that, yeah. Not really my thing, although I can admire the production— that’s a Noonie Bao and Charli XCX cowrite on the topline, I think, and Fryars on the instrumental, doing really interesting things with that Fleetwood Mac sample although no idea how they got it cleared…” 

Aziraphale nodded sagely, as if he knew what any of that meant at all. After a bit more of the Anathema primer, Crowley hit pause, and spun in his chair to face Aziraphale directly. He knit his hands together below his chin, staring over the rim of his shades with honey-colored intent. 

“We’ve got to figure out where our tastes overlap,” he suggested. “In the best interests of collaboration. Always good to have somewhere to start from.” 

“A fine idea,” said Aziraphale approvingly. 

Crowley, as might have been expected just by looking at him, was unfortunately not an opera fan, although to Aziraphale’s delight he did have an extant fondness for more contemporary musical theatre, Sondheim and Bernstein. 

Aziraphale, for his part, had heard of hardly any of the bands and artists Crowley reeled off, and the ones he had _heard_ of he certainly had never _listened_ to, at least not of his own volition. 

“Blur, you _have_ to have heard of Blur, what on Earth were you _doing_ in your twenties?”

“Mostly studying,” admitted Aziraphale. “Was a bit of a swot, I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised to learn.”

“Let me guess,” drawled Crowley. “Oxford, first class, classics? No, no— history, I’d put money on it. At, hm, Balliol or Merton.” 

Aziraphale felt a hot flush rise on his cheeks. “History at Merton,” he admitted, as if he were confessing to a murder.

But now Crowley was looking embarrassed too. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “That— that was a dumb stunt. Wasn’t a guess, I actually, er, googled you. Last night, after the concert.” 

Aziraphale honestly wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse. And then he wondered, hindsight smacking him upside the head, why he hadn’t bothered to do the same for Crowley. He’d heard Tracy babble on, certainly, and felt like he had come to know Crowley secondhand through her recapitulation of his career, but surely he’d been aware there was more to find out, all that information a click away on his work computer at the shop. 

Perhaps it was that there was a picture of Crowley in his head, already so well-formed, that he didn’t want to threaten with voluntary exposure to unflattering histories and critical opinions.

(Naive optimism, he knew, although it hadn’t been shattered just yet. Still time, though, of course. Still time.)

“Found some of your poetry, too, by the way,” Crowley was saying. “ _Knew_ it was a thing.” 

“Oh, _no—”_

“Brilliant stuff, just brilliant,” said Crowley, “and the short stories too— the one about the gentlemen’s club, fantastic!” 

Crowley had a look in his eye then, and Aziraphale felt a horribly familiar kind of anticipation— they were coming, of course they were, the inevitable questions. _Why aren’t you more well known? Why are you working in your sister’s crystal shop, and not off on a nationwide book tour? Why haven’t you published anything in five years?_

But instead Crowley just repeated, “Brilliant, I loved it,” and then stretched out his arms in a stifled yawn, before refocusing. “Anyway. _Other_ than opera, classical, musical theatre— what do you go in for? Any popular music at all?” 

Aziraphale hummed. “Well, I do rather have a bit of a soft spot for folk music,” he said. “The real stuff, you understand, fifties and sixties. Protest songs and such…. Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, early Dylan… Lomax’s collections, of course, Folkways and Moe Asch…”

Crowley nodded, mouth hanging slightly open in the way Aziraphale was learning it did when he was listening with his whole body. 

“And then— well, I don’t know if you would have heard of her— this singer, Agnes Nutter. Sort of Britain’s answer to the American folk revival…?” Aziraphale let a hopeful note linger in his voice. 

But of course, Crowley shook his head. “Nope, can’t say I have.” Then he turned back to his computer. “Let’s look her up, though, I want to hear.” 

He pulled up a video of the title track, just a static frame of the album cover to accompany the song. Aziraphale had always loved the simplicity of that cover art, a comforting green square with gold lettering, hardly giving away anything at all of the magic contained within. 

_“It’s coming, down the line  
_ _We haven’t got much time  
_ _I’ve seen the blood and I’ve seen the garden too_

 _I think I saw you there  
_ _There were rubies in your hair  
_ _And I believe that you’ll know what to do_

 _If you build me a fire  
_ _I won’t burn  
_ _If you build me a prison_  
 _I will find a way to turn_ _it into gold  
Turn it into gold” _

Aziraphale drifted away on the refrain, closing his eyes, humming along and tapping his fingers gently on his knee to the familiar rhythm of it.

He’d first heard of Agnes Nutter at university, when bootlegged tapes of her album _Prophecies_ had circulated amongst a certain coterie of Oxford students, in a sort of aesthetic pushback against the at-the-time dominant cultural paradigm of crotch-rock hair-metal. 

She’d only ever released the one album, which had sold hardly any copies at all, and she’d sunk even further into obscurity after her untimely death in 1972. But music like Agnes’s, ahead of its time as it was, could never have stayed buried for long. It was in dialogue with the future, influencing the art and thought of generations of in-the-know intellectuals, even as it remained relatively unknown to popular culture at large. 

“Oh, bloody hell— Aziraphale, you’re never going to believe this!” 

Aziraphale opened his eyes: the song was still playing up on the computer, but Crowley had gotten his phone out and was scrolling through it, apparently researching Agnes. 

“What is it?” 

Crowley turned his phone screen around, and Aziraphale squinted at it, wondering if he ought to dig his reading glasses out, but Crowley was quick with an explanation: “Aziraphale, Agnes Nutter is Anathema Device’s _grandmother._ Says so right there, on her Wikipedia. _”_

“Really? That’s— gosh,” Aziraphale said, as stunned as Crowley at this bizarre confluence. He hadn’t even known Agnes had had children, let alone been the scion of some kind of pop-music dynasty. 

“‘ _Do you believe in destiny,’_ oh, that girl— this is mad!” Crowley sank back in his chair, shaking his head in amazement. Then he straightened up slightly, pointed at Aziraphale with a determined finger. “Song. Write. Now. Let’s capture this energy.” 

Aziraphale felt a rush of confidence as he fumbled to remove his notebook and pen from his bag. Surely now, after he and this brilliant, confusing, mysterious man had spent an hour trading cultural touchstones, culminating in this kind of fated revelation, the lyrics would be born naturally, as easy as a stone rolling down a hill. 

***


	4. Chapter 4

Evening fell rapidly, gorgeous as anything through the picture windows of Crowley’s living room, as “Save The World” resolutely refused to get written. 

Aziraphale fretted with his notebook. It was a beautiful tooled-leather journal, hand-bound with thick cream paper, that Tracy had gotten him last Christmas ( _It’ll get the words flowing right, I just know it, you’ll be back writing in no time)_ , along with a lovely fountain pen that wrote ever-so-smoothly in the navy blue ink Aziraphale had always preferred. 

He’d carried both pen and book around with him everywhere he went, just in case inspiration struck when he was at work, or at the shops, or feeding the ducks at St. James Park. He’d gotten used to the patient weight of them, the steady aura of guilt they emitted as he went on failing to put them to use..

This was such a _specific_ task, anyway, he thought in frustration. Not only had he never written a song before, he’d never even written— what was it Crowley had called it?— “to spec” before. He almost wished he hadn’t learned about Anathema’s discography, or her lineage— it was much easier to conceptualize her as a sort of abstract figure his words would eventually make their way to, than to deal with the persistent mental images of her and Agnes, floating around inside his head like twin ghosts. 

The high-art sparseness of Crowley’s flat had turned, in the growing dark, into a barrenness that befitted a Spaghetti Western desert, complete with metaphorical tumbleweeds blowing past Aziraphale in the emptiness. 

Crowley strummed at his guitar every few minutes. At one point he began plucking out the _Red Dwarf_ theme song, and Aziraphale shot him a glare before returning to stare, frustrated, at his blank page. 

“Anything stirring in that pretty little head?” Crowley said, at length. “C’mon. I refuse to start regretting putting my ego on the line for this, I haven’t got the time for second-guessing.”

Aziraphale, very deliberately refraining from acknowledging the use of the word _pretty_ to describe one of his body parts, thought for a moment, and then said, “Actually, I do have an idea.”

Crowley leaned forward eagerly.

“We should take a walk.” 

“What? No! We’ve only got—” Crowley looked down at his frankly ridiculous watch— “thirty hours to deliver a full demo to Anathema’s team, we’re not going to just _take_ _a break_ now, you’ve _nearly_ got it—” 

“I think a brisk turn around the square would do wonders to improve our workflow,” insisted Aziraphale. “Get the blood rushing. A bit of vigorous gymnastic perambulation, good for the head.”

His word choice had the desired discombobulating effect on Crowley, who looked like he’d just been slapped in the face. “Alright,” he mumbled, throwing up his hands. “Fine, you _diva.”_

Aziraphale stood up, straightening out his jumper and collar as Crowley carefully put aside his guitar in its stand. 

(Was it just his imagination, or did Crowley practically do an acrobatic leap over the area rug in order to reach the door to his flat before Aziraphale, and open it for him?) 

Grosvenor Square was calm and chilly, and Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets and they talked a bit more about nothing at all, really. Aziraphale had hardly realized they’d circled the park once, then twice, before, without deciding on it aloud, they’d turned off onto a side street and begun wandering east into Soho. 

Perhaps it was their growing distance from Crowley’s flat, or the increasing inanity of their conversational topics (currently: London real estate prices) but Aziraphale began to feel like it was finally time to bring up something that had been worrying him for a while. 

“Look, Crowley. This isn’t… bringing up bad memories for you or anything, is it?” said Aziraphale delicately. “The whole songwriting business.” 

Crowley gaped at him. “What on Earth are you talking about?” 

“Well, my sister did tell me about your, er, former partner, from your old band, you know, who I understand wrote most of the lyrics of your discography. And I got the sense things didn’t exactly end well, between you— I’d hate for this process to be the source of any sort of distress.” 

Crowley threw back his head and laughed, a sheer gleeful cackle of disbelief that bounced off the buildings around them in a boomeranging echo.

“That was a _long_ time ago. Nah, if sitting down and banging out some chords was enough to send me spiraling, I’d’ve been out of house and home years back. This _is_ my job, you know. It’s a living, or so they tell me.” 

“I suppose I don’t know much about the industry,” admitted Aziraphale, “but it seems to me with a career like yours, talent like yours— you ought to be playing big theaters, not pharmaceutical conferences.” 

“It’s like this,” Crowley said, “Lucie was always the star, not me. Articles would go on about how it was an equal partnership, but that was PR rubbish. She called the shots, I tagged along. My fate was all bound up in hers, and then when we— when _she_ got it in her head that I was holding her back, that it was time for her to go solo, there wasn’t much I could do but let her.” 

“But she’s retired from performance now, isn’t she? Tracy said something about how she’s a businesswoman these days. Room for you to fill, must be!” 

Crowley’s mouth twitched, then he shrugged broadly. “You’re sweet, Aziraphale. But nobody’s exactly _begging_ for a has-been like me to come round.”

“I see.” Aziraphale pursed his lips, his eyes darting to the side, as he let the compliment go unacknowledged. 

“I do the nostalgia circuit. I produce, sometimes, for a fee, kids desperate enough to see a credit from me on their track as a benefit. But the industry moves so fast, I’ve been left behind.” He tipped his head back, hands in his pockets, staring up at the evening sky. “ _That’s_ why I need this Anathema song, see. It could kickstart everything again. Get me in with some big names, you know, really do a proper comeback with some songs to play, new songs that aren’t— _hers…”_

“That sounds wonderful,” Aziraphale said, but something about what he’d just said stung. _Big names._ Real lyricists, he was after, then. He supposed Crowley would be well within his rights to move on to greener, more professional pastures, find more established collaborators once he had the means to do so.

Entering Soho proper, Aziraphale found that they’d stopped outside of a tiny record store. Aziraphale had probably walked past it dozens of times before and never even noticed, but Crowley greeted it with the happy familiarity of a well-frequented standby. 

The clerk raised his eyebrows in recognition when Crowley ambled inside. “Hullo, Mr. Crowley,” he said, and Crowley took a few long-legged strides right up to the counter and leaned against it, his fingers tapping cheerily on the laminate.

“Have you got any Agnes Nutter in?” Crowley asked the clerk.

The clerk looked at him like he was crazy, not even bothering to type in the name and check their stock. “That shit’s been out of print for decades, mate,” he said. “Kind of the Holy Grail of folk records. Good luck tracking down a copy, they go for thousands of pounds online when they pop up.”

“Ah, no worries,” said Crowley. “There’s always Spotify, yeah?” The clerk scowled, and Crowley tipped him a cheeky salute. 

“I’m surprised he’d even heard of her,” said Aziraphale, as they turned away from the counter and wandered further into the shop. “ _You_ hadn’t, after all.” 

“This _is_ a record shop,” said Crowley. “Think they make them take an exam before hiring.” 

He meandered to a bin of CDs marked _BARGAIN - 99p,_ saying, “Don’t mind me, it’s time for my quarterly ego death.” Aziraphale peered over his shoulder and watched him flick through the collected discs, obviously looking for something in particular. 

“Yep, still here,” he said, pulling out a disc with a black-and-white cover. “The first and only Anthony Crowley solo album. _Dreams of the Snake._ Been in that bin for something like a decade now.” 

“Oh— but it’s wonderful!” said Aziraphale, taking the CD from Crowley and turning it over in his hands. A fifteen-years-younger Crowley was pictured on the front in a pensive, dramatic pose, leaning against a brick wall in with a cigarette dangling artistically from his fingers.

“You wouldn’t say that if you heard it,” said Crowley. “ _Tremendously mortifying, an embarrassment to the very name of rock music._ That’s the Guardian review, direct quote.” He shook his head. “Was so in my head about Lucie, thought that’d make for good music. Turns out, doesn’t matter how bloody wrecked you are, if you can’t write a chorus people can sing along to, you’re never going to blow up the charts.” 

“You’re being rather open about all of this,” said Aziraphale carefully. “It’s really— well, I appreciate it. All of your honesty.” 

There was a long, silent beat, Crowley’s shades flashing blankly at Aziraphale under the store’s fluorescent lights, and then he abruptly threw up his hands in a casual gesture. “I— well— just getting you up to speed, is all. Yeah. Er— developing a proper working relationship. If we’re going to write a brilliant song together, we’ve— got to get to know each other. That’s how we do it, in the business, part of the artistic process.” 

“I see,” said Aziraphale. Of course. Simply a function of a business arrangement.

Well, it made sense. Crowley wasn’t the sort of man Aziraphale would naturally ever have been friends with. If it hadn’t been for that week’s series of odd coincidences, he would never have met him at all. When this collaboration of convenience ended, things would go back to normal. He supposed he had to simply enjoy it while it lasted. 

“All the same,” Aziraphale said, “Thank you. I suppose— well. I do know how it can be hard, going back to the start, after reaching such lofty heights.” 

Something clicked, then, in his mind. 

It must have clicked in Crowley’s too, because his mouth dropped slightly open, and then his hand came up to point wordlessly at Aziraphale.

“Quite right,” said Aziraphale, and they hurried out of the store, chasing the perfect lyric. 

***

If they’d been twenty years younger, they might have sprinted all the way back to Crowley’s, aglow with the flame of a fresh idea, burning hot and bright. 

But as it was, they were a hair past their mutual prime, and so merely walked at a slightly more brisk pace than before. Once back inside Crowley’s flat, coats were hung up, seats were taken, and work began anew. 

Aziraphale had a first verse within an hour, and Crowley had a set of gorgeous chords underneath it and a vocal melody that hummed with promise. 

“ _It can be hard, going back to the start  
_ _After reaching such great heights…”_

That was it. He knew it was, they both did. The beginning of “Save The World.” 

—And then, naturally, their momentum fell right out from underneath them. 

The night drew inexorably on, and Aziraphale began to feel miserably certain that his flash of inspiration had been naught but a fluke.

Crowley had taken off his shades, tossing them right onto the console, and he kept looking at Aziraphale, waiting for him to flick on like a fountain and start spouting a flow of award-winning phrases. Aziraphale would begin a new stanza, and abruptly stop, withdrawing back into himself, as he realized it couldn’t match up to the expectation set by the opening. 

Finally, around 4 AM, Crowley set his guitar aside. “Gonna take a nap. I’ve done my bit. _You—”_ he pointed at Aziraphale again, what _was_ it with all the pointing? “—keep going. I want another verse to that same melody, and the words to the full chorus by the time I wake up.” 

“And when might that be?”

“When I wake up! Obviously!” 

Aziraphale, who had trouble falling asleep at the best of times, and more often struggled with an all-encompassing insomnia, was perfectly aware going to bed was out of the question. Perhaps with the absence of Crowley’s constant strumming and plucking at his big red guitar, he might manage to enter a kind of zen state, and bring forth some stunning poetry.

Crowley was dead to the world, curled up in a pile of long limbs on the sofa, but when the sun rose over Mayfair a scant three or so hours later, he stirred in the low light with a soft groan. A few seconds later he sat up, his auburn quiff mussed in a way that Aziraphale refused to allow his brain to put words to.

He blinked sleepily. Aziraphale’s pen was poised above his open notebook, scratching away, and when Crowley spotted it his eyes opened fully, taking on a hungry aspect. “Oh, _please_ tell me you’ve got something.” 

Aziraphale, wordlessly, turned his notebook around to show Crowley what he’d been working on: a small cartoon of a snail crawling inexorably past Nelson’s Column, with a speech bubble that read _I DO HOPE I WILL NOT BE LATE FOR MY DINNER IN BARCELONA._

“Anything good to eat around here?” Aziraphale asked, looking pointedly out of the window. 

“No, no, you’re not getting _rewarded_ for not getting anything done!” Crowley groaned, swinging himself into an upright position. “We’ve got to keep working!” 

Aziraphale folded his arms petulantly. “What we’ve _got_ to do, in my humble opinion— though I’m no _professional_ like yourself, so really, pay me no heed— what we’ve got to do is _eat._ The body must be nourished so that the mind may flourish, dear boy.” 

Crowley groaned, then threw up his hands. “Fine. Let’s go.” He rose from the sofa in one sinuous movement, snatched his sunglasses from the console, and then crossed the room to grab his coat. Aziraphale followed him out the door, watching him go.

He wondered whether all of Crowley’s years up onstage had imbued him with that permanent swagger, or if the swagger had come first, and led him inevitably to a career that featured it prominently. 

A bit of a chicken and egg situation, possibly. 

***

Even just the mere promise of a pastry in the very near future seemed to be adequate to kickstart Aziraphale’s brain. “ _But down in the dark, something grows from a spark…”_ he mused, scratching away in his notebook as they walked. 

“Yes! Genius!” Crowley said. “Heights, and then _down—_ contrasts, Aziraphale, you’re really onto something. So what comes after—” He cut off, as he noticed Aziraphale was no longer walking beside him. 

Aziraphale had stopped, right in the middle of the pavement, his eyes fixed on the contents of the window display of the store at ground level. He was hardly aware of anything as he stared, his vision tunneling black and his ears buzzing with an awful ring. 

“What is it? What’s going on! Talk to me, Aziraphale!” 

There were hands, warm, strong hands gripping his arms, and thus grounded, Aziraphale could pull himself together enough to notice that those hands belonged to Crowley, and then found that with that knowledge came the rediscovery of his ability to speak. 

“Nothing. I— I thought I— saw someone, but— it wasn’t him— just a trick of the eye—” He managed, with some difficulty, to pull his gaze away from the window and towards Crowley’s worried expression. He blinked a few times, shrugged himself out of Crowley’s grip and forced a smile. “I’m quite alright, thank you. Shall we sally forth?” 

“Mm— no.”

“Pardon?”

“Not going anywhere till you explain what all that was about. We’ve got a deadline in seventeen hours, I need you operating at capacity, which is obviously not happening right now. So, out with it.” 

Aziraphale looked up at the facade of the store. It was one of those massive chain bookstores, the complete inverse of his familiar haunt in Brixton. The window was proudly boasting a forthcoming book signing, a big portrait of a square-jawed author surrounded by hardcover copies of a book titled _The Miraculous Amalgamation of Zebadiah Kent._

“Have you heard of that man? Gabriel Gray?” 

Crowley looked over at the display, then quizzically back at Aziraphale. “Yeah. Sure. Wrote _Zebadiah Kent,_ big bestseller. Saw him on Jonathan Ross, very… American.”

“And have you— _read_ the book?” 

“Nah,” said Crowley. “I don’t read books.” 

“Well,” said Aziraphale. “I— hm. How to put it.” He rubbed a thumb slowly across the embossed cover of his notebook. “I’m Zebediah Kent.” 

***

“Gabriel was a coworker,” Aziraphale was explaining, in between bites of a delightfully fluffy almond croissant and sips of tea, “at the publishing house. Brilliant editor, but he had aspirations beyond the business. He wanted to be a writer in his own right, admired not just for his talent at making deals but for his creative genius.” He sighed. “I mean, we all do— _did._ You’re not a real publishing employee unless you harbor secret dreams of shucking off the shackles of the slush pile and ascending to authorial stardom, after all.” 

“And you?”

Aziraphale smiled sadly. “Well, of course. I’ve been writing since I could hold a pen.” He took another slow sip of tea, as if to postpone the part of the story that had to come next. But he couldn’t put it off forever, not with Crowley leaning towards him, rapt, waiting for him to go on.

“A few years ago, Gabriel was promoted above me, to editor-in-chief. And I—” 

Aziraphale flexed his fingers on the table, pressing them into the plastic surface to steady himself. “I wanted _so_ badly to impress him. When he started paying more and more attention to me, and my work, I thought I might finally have a chance at publication. I developed… an obsession. An infatuation. And then...” 

Crowley’s hand seemed to hover, for a moment, like it was going to land on Aziraphale’s, but then he pulled it away to grip his coffee cup tightly. In a low voice, he said, “Did he— was this—?” 

Aziraphale laughed nervously. “Oh, it was all consensual. We were the same age, we’d known each other for years, and I mean, there were no _rules_ against it, like you get at some companies— but he wouldn’t let me tell anyone. He said it would cause too much disruption, and I eventually agreed. We shared our work; I gave notes on his, he gave notes on mine. It— I _thought_ it was a partnership. I thought our stars would rise together.”

He took a deep breath. “And then one day I found one of his manuscripts, one I hadn’t seen before, that he’d been submitting to other publishers he had connections with. It had whole paragraphs, pulled wholesale from my own work. Entire exchanges I’d spent hours on, plots and characters I’d shared with him in confidence. I made up my mind to confront him. I’d never been to his flat before, but I had his address from work, so I showed up one night, proof in hand. And— who opens the door? His _fiancee._ ”

“Fucking hell.”

“A woman, by the way.”

“... Fucking _hell.”_

Aziraphale sipped his tea delicately, avoiding Crowley’s pitying expression.

“What did you do?” 

“I left, of course. Couldn’t possibly stay, go on facing him, _working_ for him. Left the company, left publishing, he’d made sure I couldn’t get a job anywhere else. Stopped writing. Lost my flat, moved in with my sister and started working for her. And one year later, nearly to the day, _The Miraculous Amalgamation of Zebediah Kent_ debuted at number one on the best-seller list.” 

He made air-quotes as he recited, “ _A renowned poet falls under the spell of an aspiring writer, whose patchwork facade of eccentricity disguises a hollow inhumanity. When the poet realizes the writer’s foul intentions, and tries to break things off, the writer devotes himself to ruining the poet’s life.”_

Aziraphale tried to keep his voice on the level, but he was unable to keep it from wavering. 

“He cast me as— as a demonic homewrecker, hell-bent on sucking him dry of all creative power. All the worst stereotypes of the evil sissy, bound up into one awful, antagonistic _caricature._ ”

“But— it could just be a coincidence,” offered Crowley. “I mean, that doesn’t sound like you at all. Unless you’re hiding quite a lot from me, and I don’t think you are.” 

Aziraphale shook his head, and began counting off the similarities. “Unwieldy first name, one-syllable surname; from Guildford, with a twin sister; read history at Oxford; my color hair, my color eyes—”

“Ugh.” 

“—and to top it all off,” said Aziraphale bitterly, “the whole work was _completely_ original, so I had utterly no recourse to expose him for the plagiarist he is. Seemed like he had no problems not stealing work, as long as he had someone’s _actual_ life to steal from instead.” 

Crowley leaned forward intently. “Listen. I don’t blame you, for getting out of there. But you cannot let a _wanker_ like that stop you from pursuing your passions.” 

“He’s not a wanker,” said Aziraphale miserably. “He’s a Booker Prize winner.”

“Then show him up, do him one better! Write a smash hit!” 

Aziraphale sighed. “It’s a nice thought, but I can’t imagine Gabriel Gray would be impressed by a credit on Anathema Device’s newest single, even if it does become a— _hit,_ as you say.” 

“Right,” smirked Crowley, “because popular music is _far_ beneath such an eminent public thinker as the great Gabriel Gray.” 

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like—”

“Course you didn’t. But no matter how many copies it sells,” Crowley said with a smug air, “that _Zebediah Kent_ tripe has never and _will_ never give _anyone_ a thrill as deep and satisfying as two bars of Damon Albarn going _whoo-hoo!_ Or the _crash_ and _roar_ of the intro to ‘Yellow’—” Crowley was getting caught up in his metaphor, rocking out to the Coldplay song that was playing inside his head, throwing his head back as he mimed with an invisible guitar.

Aziraphale gave a frustrated huff. “Look, imagine— imagine if your favorite singer, Daniel Albert or whoever—”

“ _Damon Albarn—”_

“—came up to you and said, Anthony Crowley, you are a _sham_ of a songwriter.”

“He did say that, actually. Glastonbury ‘98, backstage, while Jarvis Cocker watched, and most definitely did _not_ spring to my defense, which made it worse—” 

“Fine. Ah— Kurt Cobain, then, and _yes,_ I know who he is, don’t look at me like that. What if _Kurt Cobain_ said, Anthony Crowley, you are a horrible excuse for a songwriter. How would you react?” 

“Well, first of all, I’d congratulate him on his successful return to the world of the living,” said Crowley. “And then, yes, alright, sure, I would be bereft. I would mope. I would spend too much money on things I didn’t need. And then, after the industry standard Moping Period had passed me by, I would pick myself up, find a lyricist, and write a damn good song all about my shit mood.” He smiled at Aziraphale. “How’s that for a plan, then?” 

“I— I can’t find any fault with it, certainly.” 

“Great. Then come on, let’s go.” 

***

Crowley had been right. Getting to know each other, opening up, was the key to a successful musical collaboration. 

Aziraphale certainly hadn’t _planned_ to tell Crowley about the _Zebediah Kent_ situation— hardly anyone other than Tracy was aware of the full scale of it— but he found that once he had, it was like he’d opened a door, one that had already been unlocked by Crowley’s own confessions. 

He scribbled down lyrics and they workshopped verses and Crowley sang and strummed until they had an entire first half of a song, catchy as any of Anathema’s biggest hits, but with a grungy edge courtesy of Crowley’s rock-leaning melody. 

Aziraphale took out words with too many syllables and replaced them with words with too few syllables, and eventually landed on words that rang just right, that perfect mix of concise and evocative. He remembered all those times he’d pulled teeth over a single line in a poem, slaving for days over some singular finicky bit of syntax or elision. Of course, there was an enjoyment in that, one he treasured. But that was an entirely different kind of process, a distant cousin to the free-associating collaborative flow-state he now found himself in. 

The experience of reading out a stanza and having Crowley sing it right back to him, fitting his phrases to a perfect melody, was unlike anything he’d ever known. Certainly, it was a far cry from whatever pale imitation of partnership he’d had with Gabriel Gray, which had really mostly consisted of a lot of backhanded compliments and low-level mockery. 

Aziraphale fought Crowley on the relative merits of the word “sword” — _(“You can’t put the word sword in a pop song, Aziraphale!” “The symbolism is essential!” “It’s just unwieldy.” “What about— door?” “There we go!”)_ and the need for subtlety in the song’s environmental messaging _(“Whales. What about whales? Something about— saving them?” “I’ll add a line about the ocean. The whales shall therefore be implicit.”)_

Crowley, clearly an observational learner, made sure to keep food arriving throughout the day from various local takeaways, in order to keep Aziraphale calorically empowered. 

Aziraphale tried to get Crowley to partake, but the man seemed to be running completely on coffee and a kind of hypnotically frantic hyperfocus. He did have an awful lot riding on this song, Aziraphale knew well. It could lead to bigger and better things, the comeback he so dearly deserved.

(Aziraphale had the horrid thought that he _could_ phone it in, just a _bit,_ just to have the song not do _quite_ well enough for Crowley to immediately be lifted away to a higher echelon of the industry. But— no, that wouldn’t do at all. It _had_ to be a hit.) 

The session chugged along at a quick clip. At one point Aziraphale was struggling over the bridge of the song, for which Crowley had laid out the chord structure. He was helpfully playing it out and humming a melody, over and over so that Aziraphale could find the words to fit. 

But he was drawing a blank. How to possibly match the energy of the dynamic section they were coming out of, the bit Crowley had informed him was called a “post-chorus?”

“So, is it coming?” asked Crowley, over the ringing notes of his guitar.

“No, I don’t know!” Aziraphale shot back, on the defensive, but as his voice crossed Crowley’s with the chords underneath, he felt a nearly electric burst of inspiration. 

“The bridge is a _conversation,”_ he exclaimed, and that was all he needed. As the sun set, and their midnight deadline rapidly approached in a Cinderellesque fashion, he wrote lines for each half of the duet to trade during the bridge. 

Later, partaking in some delicacies from a recently-arrived delivery of Chinese, Aziraphale watched as Crowley pulled out an electronic keyboard from underneath his console desk, put on a pair of big black headphones, and began tapping rhythmically at the keys, along to a rhythm Aziraphale couldn’t hear.

“What’s that you’re doing?” 

Crowley slipped one earphone off, and looked over his shoulder at Aziraphale. “I’m laying down the bed—” 

Aziraphale nearly choked on his spring roll. 

“— _tracks,_ Aziraphale, the _bed tracks,_ get your mind out of the gutter. We’ve got four hours to deliver this rough demo, and all the music’s done, so leave me to do my dark bidding in Pro Tools and I’ll get a basic instrumental together. As soon as you’re finished with your literary masterpiece, we’ll get the vocals tracked, and I’ll do a rough mix before sending it off.” 

As Aziraphale put the finishing touches on his lyrics, stringing the rhymes together like a pearl necklace of rhythm and meter, Crowley whacked at the piano, then pulled down an electric bass from the wall, and finally moved on to his beautiful red guitar. Its machined curves fit snugly against his lithe chest, tugging wrinkles into his close-fitting gray t-shirt.

It was really rather distracting— how talented he was. Aziraphale put down his pen and simply _watched,_ watched Crowley’s fingers moving over the frets, watched his expression of deep concentration as he laid down track after track. He’d bite his lip at times, as he picked out certain riffs; his eyes would squint up at the screen as he cut different takes together. 

Aziraphale could practically _feel_ the love Crowley had for the simple, joyous act of making music. He wondered if Crowley knew how obvious it was, this all-consuming passion; he seemed the kind of person who’d be embarrassed to have any kind of visible enthusiasm acknowledged out loud. 

Eventually, though Aziraphale could’ve watched forever, Crowley put down the guitar, and reached out to flip a switch on the console. 

Suddenly, there was music blasting through the speakers, echoing around the acoustically perfect room. Crowley leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, head bobbing slowly to the beat. 

It was like that moment in Tracy’s store, but multiplied a thousandfold. How on Earth had he _done_ that? Yes, they’d been working on the song for hours now, but the music and lyrics as bandied back and forth between just the two of them had in no way prepared Aziraphale for this glossy wall of sound, drums and synths and chiming layers of guitars. 

“It sounds incredible, Crowley,” said Aziraphale. “You’re— that’s amazing!” 

“Shut up, it’s nothing.”

Crowley busied himself with retrieving something from a drawer— an assemblage of plastic and metal that soon shaped itself into a tall stand, standing upright before the console, with an expensive-looking black microphone held in its cradle.

“Alright. Get over here.” 

“What?” 

Crowley shook the mic stand demonstratively. “I need you to do Anathema’s part. It’s a duet, I can’t do both parts, and you’ve got a range close enough to hers.” 

“I don’t sing—” 

“You _do!_ You’ve been singing this song all day with me, I’ve _heard_ you!” 

“But—” 

Before Aziraphale could protest further, he was being dragged forward towards the stand, a pair of headphones clapped around his ears, and a microphone shoved in front of his face. His notebook, opened to the finished lyrics, was pushed back into his hands. 

Crowley hit the space bar on his keyboard, and the song’s intro started playing. Aziraphale gave Crowley a terrified look, to which Crowley’s response was to lay a steady hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder, nod encouragingly, and smile. 

That was enough.

 _Here goes nothing,_ Aziraphale thought. And then he sang. And then they _both_ sang—

  
  


**AZIRAPHALE**

_It can be hard, going back to the start  
_ _After reaching such great heights_

_But down in the dark, something grows from a spark  
_ _And I think I can see the light_

**CROWLEY**

_Keep your arrows up  
_ _And your armor strong  
_ _They say it’s all going to end  
_ _But what if they’re wrong_

**BOTH**

_You and me, we can save the world  
_ _It’s the only one we’ve got  
_ _You and me we can save the world  
_ _We’ve gotta give it a shot_

**CROWLEY**

_Come up to the surface, your oxygen heart  
_ _Beating out something bright_

_Turn through the seasons, finding new reasons  
_ _To stand up, and put up a fight_

**AZIRAPHALE**

_The cold, it grows  
_ _Till we can’t ignore  
_ _But if you hold me  
_ _I can hold the door_

**BOTH**

_You and me, we can save the world  
_ _It’s the only one we’ve got  
_ _You and me we can save the world  
_ _We’ve gotta give it a shot_

**AZIRAPHALE**

_Don’t you know  
_ _You’re the one I want  
_ _Standing by my side_

**CROWLEY**

_You and me  
_ _We can save the world_

**AZIRAPHALE**

_I’ve been dreaming, darling, of impossible things_

**CROWLEY**

_And I can’t help it, baby, I’m listening_

**AZIRAPHALE**

_So what’s coming?_

**CROWLEY**

_No I don’t know_

**AZIRAPHALE**

_Are you scared_

**CROWLEY**

_I don’t think so_

**AZIRAPHALE**

_Can you tell me if we’re gonna be alright_

**CROWLEY**

_All I can say is  
_ _You and me, we can save the world  
_ _Together, together  
_ _You and me, we can save the world  
_ _And maybe it won’t be forever_

**BOTH**

_But just a drop in the ocean can overflow  
_ _We can find a reminder to not let go  
_ _Just believe and you’ll see we can make a home_

_You and me  
_ _We will save the world_

  
  


Aziraphale watched, feeling slightly floaty and indistinct, as Crowley exported the file he’d named “SAVETHEWORLD_CROWLEYDEMO_ROUGH_01.wav” and attached it to an email, addressing it to Anathema, a handful of Downstairs Records email addresses, and his assistant Newt. 

> _hi guys_
> 
> _rough demo for SAVE THE WORLD attached. pub split 50/50 me + Aziraphale Z. Fell (unpublished)._
> 
> _enjoy! was a blast to write_
> 
> _xxxx AJC_

It was 11:58pm. Crowley quickly hit SEND, and off their song went, fluttering into the electronic void to meet its fate. 

“What now?” asked Aziraphale. 

“Alcohol,” said Crowley emphatically, “extraordinary amounts of alcohol.”

***

Crowley, as it turned out, had an exquisite collection of wine, apparently the majority of which had been stolen ( _“I’d call it long-term appropriation, really”)_ from various high-class industry events. 

Soon they were two bottles of red deep, leaning against the black granite of Crowley’s intimidatingly clean kitchen. 

“But do you miss it? Publishing, ‘n that? Books, books all day! Bloody paradise for you, yeah?” Crowley was saying.

Aziraphale waved an unsteady hand. “Ah. Well. Yes— no. I’m— I’m not quite sure, really. It’s rather all— bound up, isn’t it? Such lovely memories, and— and then such horrible ones too—” 

“Mm. Know the feeling.” Crowley drained the last of his glass and plunked it down onto the counter. “Fuck it. You’re better than them, anyway,” he said, “you’ve got ah. Y’know. Je ne— je ne sm— a special something.” 

He was awfully close to Aziraphale. And he was getting closer. Was he just headed for the wine rack behind him, to get another bottle? Must be. 

On the counter, Crowley’s phone gave a _ding!_ and lit up. He halted his advance, leaned over to look. 

“Oh, shit.” 

“What? What’ve they said?” 

Aziraphale leaned over too, squinting down at the screen, where a short email from none other than Anathema Device was visible. 

> _I LOVE IT. THAT’S MY SINGLE. YES. <3 <3 <3 CAN’T WAIT TO RECORD! THANK YOU CROWLEY. WE WILL SAVE THE WORLD!!!! _

“My goodness, _Crowley,_ that’s—” Aziraphale began, and he looked up at Crowley, hands frozen at his sides, not really sure what was appropriate at this juncture, his head was swimming with drink and disbelief, he was a _songwriter,_ he’d _written_ something _,_ for the first time in years—

Then, blessedly, Crowley’s arms were around him, and he was being practically lifted off the ground in a surprisingly strong embrace. Crowley was laughing, and Aziraphale was grinning into Crowley’s shoulder, which smelled of sweat and sleeplessness and song, an impossibly heady mix.

“We did it, angel,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale didn’t know what part of that made his heart race more. They were a _we,_ now, a true partnership— they’d _done it,_ they’d made something beautiful, together— and, _oh._

He’d called him _angel._

_***_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> full disclosure: i have caught up to myself posting these and will now be writing as i go, so updates may be slower! also, no new song this chapter but there will be more to come before the story ends, i promise :)

As soon as the initial excitement of the song’s acceptance by Anathema had worn off, Aziraphale and Crowley had both experienced a simultaneous wave of tiredness, all the pent-up exhaustion from their creative exertion crashing over them with immense force. 

Aziraphale couldn’t stifle his massive yawn, which immediately spread to Crowley until they were just standing there, trading yawns back and forth, and then finally they melted into an immense exchange of giggles, which ballooned into great guffaws of disbelief before finally settling down into dizzy sighs. 

When they’d both sufficiently recovered, Crowley stretched languorously. He seemed to unfold forever, his limbs extending impossibly, great black lengths that had so recently been wrapped around Aziraphale. 

“I’d better be off, then,” said Aziraphale. “Let you get some rest. You deserve it.” 

“Mmm. You too, I mean, you didn’t sleep at all— er— where do you live?” 

Aziraphale dearly wished he could tell Crowley he still lived in Soho, in that cozy flat on the corner, where he had more than enough room for his book collection, and a lovely window seat stuffed full of cushions, where he’d write for hours, downing endless cups of tea, wearing down the grooves in his favorite records. But that wasn’t a life he’d lived for a long while now. 

“Peckham,” he admitted. “Bit of a jog.”

“You can stay here, if you like,” Crowley said quickly, “got a spare room—” 

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” said Aziraphale, a wide, nervous smile spreading involuntarily across his face, as it often did when he turned down any sort of offered kindness. 

“Well, lemme give you a lift home, then,” Crowley said. “Don’t want you nodding off on the night bus and ending up in Croydon.” 

Aziraphale’s heart gave a little leap at the thought of climbing into Crowley’s car, but it was quickly extinguished by practicalities. “You haven’t  _ slept,  _ Crowley,” Aziraphale said pointedly, “ _ and  _ you’re still  _ very  _ drunk.” 

“Oh. Right. Ha.” Crowley ran a hand through his already-unruly hair, making it stick up in a completely different direction. The modern lighting of the kitchen caught it as it moved, lighting up each individual strand, making them shine scarlet, copper, claret.

“I’m perfectly happy to take a taxi,” said Aziraphale. “And you’ll just have to— owe me one?” It wasn’t meant to end on a question like that, but Aziraphale couldn’t help his voice from rising with the slightest of hopeful inflections. 

Crowley smiled. “Sure. Well, let me see you off, then.” 

Aziraphale gathered his things from the front room, including his notebook. It was a bit dizzying, to pick it up and yet feel unburdened by empty pages. There were words in there now—  _ his  _ words.

They stood there a moment by the door, and one part of Aziraphale’s head, still a bit swoony with wine and happiness, whispered that it absolutely wouldn’t be too forward to hug Crowley again. Unfortunately, the everyday, practical part of his head had a different view of the matter, and so instead he held out his hand. 

Crowley stared at it a moment before bursting into a disbelieving cackle. “C’mere, you ridiculous person,” he said, and pulled Aziraphale in for another hug. This one was tighter, quicker, and Aziraphale regretted his wish for it almost immediately— he’d rather have had just that first hug to remember, the one that went on forever, the one where his feet were lifted off the ground, and he could feel Crowley’s heart beating against his; not this small, perfunctory embrace. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, he supposed. 

“Goodbye, then. And— thank you.” 

“I should be thanking you,” said Crowley. “You’re a miracle, honest.” 

“I don’t know about that, you did most of the—” 

“Shuddup. Now, scram. Go get some sleep, you look like you’re gonna keel over.” 

Aziraphale had indeed been tired when he stepped out of Crowley’s flat, but the second he got into the taxi, he was suddenly wide awake. 

It was— well, it was unbelievable. He was so far out of his depth it had passed life-threatening and come all the way back around to comical. The sleep deprivation didn’t make it any better— he started laughing half-mad to himself, amazed and dismayed at the improbability of it all.

What was  _ he _ , Aziraphale Fell, former literary upstart and current purveyor of middle-aged mediocrity, doing  _ palling around  _ with a literal  _ rockstar?  _ Has-been or not, Crowley had done so much more in his life than Aziraphale could ever have hoped to. His performances had changed the lives of millions of people over the years. He was writing a song for the biggest pop star in the world, for God’s sake! And, to add insult to injury, he was  _ handsome. _ Aziraphale could admit that to himself now that he had put some physical distance between them. Crowley was stunning— and it wasn’t merely his impossible hair and the graceful planes of his carven face, but also the way he moved, talked, laughed. The way he created something from nothing, pulled music from the air and shaped it into melody and mood.

As the taxi rumbled further from Crowley’s flat, and the evening’s events faded from Aziraphale’s nerves, he began to fret in earnest. Here he was, play-acting out some idealized version of someone else’s life, like he always did. Pretty soon the rickety sets would come crashing down, the makeshift costumes would fall apart, and things would be revealed for what they really were. 

A few minutes of anxiety later, he was stepping carefully back into the flat, well aware that Pepper and Tracy had been asleep for hours. His caution was, unfortunately, undone entirely by the sharp  _ chirp!  _ of his mobile phone rudely shattering the silence. (He’d never really learned how to turn the sound off— had never got enough texts for it to matter.)

“Oh, goodness gracious,” he whispered, fumbling for the device. Its screen, a bright beacon in the dark of the living room, displayed an alert that made a sharp flash of adrenaline rush through his exhausted body. 

_ brunch tomorrow? to celebrate. know a great spot. 3pm? _

Aziraphale clicked on the link attached to the message, which sprang up in his Maps app and displayed a fancy-looking restaurant a few blocks from Crowley’s flat. 

_ Three o’clock is hardly the hour for brunch,  _ he sent back. 

Crowley’s reply was near-instant:  _ i’ll take that as a yes. see you soon. bed now zzzzzzz _

  
  


***

  
  


Newton Pulsifer couldn’t believe his own two eyes. He kept blinking rapidly behind his glasses, convinced that he was long overdue to wake up, back in his flat, after having had a really lovely and incredibly unrealistic dream. 

But no— he blinked one last time, and she was still there. Sitting across from him in the crowded, dingy Caffe Nero near his flat, in living color, was the one and only Anathema Device. She was clad in midnight-blue velvet, her glossy hair done up in a practical half-bun. People around her kept sneaking disbelieving looks, blatantly obvious in their rubbernecking as they tried to puzzle out what the top pop star of the year was doing sipping a flat white in a chain cafe in Stoke Newington, of all places. 

“No shame at all,” scowled Newt, shooting daggers right back at the teen girl a few tables down, who quickly averted her eyes, giggling something indistinct to her gaggle of friends.

Anathema smiled, and patted Newt on the hand. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.” 

“You mean— you don’t mind?” 

“I didn’t say that,” she said carefully, now tracing a vague shape in the grime on the plastic table. Newt had offered to take her somewhere nice, one of those upscale coffee spots in Shoreditch with the pure white counters and exotic pour-overs, but she’d insisted on this place once she found out it was the one closest to Newt’s flat. Something about how she didn’t often get the chance to check out new neighborhoods.

“Well. Um. So.” Newt sipped nervously at his over-brewed, tasteless tea. They’d been talking about nothing much at all for the last twenty minutes, and it had been really wonderful, but a growing sense of urgent responsibility was growing in the pit of his stomach. Keeping up this small talk business was a dangerous prospect, as it led closer and closer to genuinely personal topics.  _ She  _ was the one who’d texted him and asked him to meet— that kind of initiative on the part of a romantic interest was utterly unprecedented, in his experience, and had thrown him rather off-balance. He knew he was very vulnerable currently, more than usual, to being an utter idiot.

“So, the— the song, then?” 

“You heard it?”

“Oh, yes. Crowley sent it through earlier— the demo, I mean. I can’t wait to hear you on it. It’s gonna sound— incredible. Really.”

She fiddled with her necklace, and smiled, but there was something wistful in it. “Thanks,” she said. “I mean— I was really blown away. Almost like, it was too good to be true. I worried I’d been pretty vague in my pitch, but it was as if Crowley and his new co-writer somehow tapped into exactly what I wanted.” 

“When are you recording?” 

“Supposed to be Wednesday,” she said, and the wistfulness now deepened into apprehension. “But who knows what it’ll sound like by then. You might not think it’s so great by the time I’m done with it.” She leaned her palm on her chin disconsolately. 

“What do you mean?” Newt asked, confused. “You just said you loved it…?” 

Anathema squinted at him, and he abruptly remembered that, oh, Christ, he was supposed to be a  _ manager,  _ he was supposed to know how all of this  _ worked,  _ not just have vague concepts derived from the amalgamation of Crowley’s drunken reminisces about the Good Old Days, and various music-themed movies that ran the gamut of accuracy. 

“Well,” Anathema said slowly, “you never know, do you? I already got really lucky, getting a new song written just for me like this. I have a meeting with the A&Rs after this, and they might want to take it in a different direction, more suitable for the algorithms. They might need something the PDs in America will respond to, or something that can better compete against other Q4 releases.” 

_ Algorithms. A&Rs. PDs.  _ It was all Greek to him. He wanted to burst out in questions— did she  _ have  _ to do what the people at the label said? Wasn’t she one of the biggest artists in the world, didn’t she have the power to wave her delicate, sharp-nailed hand and get whatever she wanted? 

But that would give the game away. So he just took another nervous sip of lukewarm tea and nodded sympathetically. 

From across the cafe, a girl with bright pink hair approached Anathema cautiously, hands clutched tightly around the straps of her iridescent silver backpack. “I know it’s not till next week,” she said, “but I’m a massive fan, and I just wanted to say— happy birthday, Anathema, I think you’re brilliant and I hope you have a brilliant year…” 

Anathema graciously agreed to take a photo with the girl; Newt offered, but the girl declined in favor of a selfie, and Newt breathed a sigh of relief. He was rubbish at photos. 

Eventually, after a few more breathless compliments, the fan took her leave, scurrying back to her giggling mates across the room.

Newt cleared his throat. “It’s your birthday next week?” His mind had immediately jumped to potential gifts. He always got girls necklaces, or delicate little bracelets, but Anathema seemed to have more than enough jewelry. And really, she must be awfully rich, and he was pretty much the complete opposite, so what could  _ he  _ possibly give to  _ her _ that wouldn’t disappoint utterly and terribly? 

“Yes,” she said, “and no.”

He frowned. “Oh, now you’re just messing with me. Yes  _ and  _ no? It can’t be your birthday and— and  _ not  _ your birthday at the same time.”

Anathema looked around, as if to make sure nobody was listening, and then leaned forward. “I haven’t told anyone this,” she giggled, “but I… changed my birthday.” 

“What?” 

She shrugged. “Well, people change their names all the time, to make them more…  _ them. _ Why should birthdays be different? When I was twelve, I really didn’t think I should’ve been an Aries. I wanted to be a Libra more than anything. It seemed more auspicious, more appropriate to my ambitions. So I changed it. Started telling everyone I was six months older. I think my mom’s the only person who knows the original date, at this point.” 

“Wow.”

“I was... a weird kid.”

“So was I,” said Newt. “I was obsessed with parenting magazines. I’d make my mum buy them for me, and take them home and cut out all the articles I thought she needed to read, in order to do a better job at being my mum.” 

Newt immediately regretted opening his mouth. He’d made a hash of it, like he knew he would. He’d just admitted one of the most boring, embarrassing things about his childhood as if it were a quirky personal anecdote instead of something that made him look like the neurotic loser he actually was. It went against everything he’d learned from the forums.

But the last bit of odd nervousness drained from Anathema’s eyes then, as she laughed, not at Newt but with him, and Newt seized the moment. He reached out across the dirty table and, in a burst of confidence, laid his hand across hers. 

Unbelievably, she seemed amenable to this; she squeezed his hand lightly, her fingers warm and soft. “You know, you’re really not like other managers,” she said. 

Newt’s laugh was definitely higher-pitched than normal. “That’s— nice of you to say,” he stammered.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m between managers right now, because my last one was just, ugh, the worst, and all of the ones I’m currently talking to are more of the same. But I can tell Crowley’s really lucky to have you on his team.” 

He thanked her as profusely as his pride and fear would allow, and then her phone chimed and she told him she needed to head out. He got up so quickly to see her off he knocked over his chair with a loud clatter.

“I’m having a party on Tuesday,” she said, as he hurriedly restored the chair to an upright position. “Sort of an album-is-done celebration slash birthday party— I’ll text you the invitation. I’d love to have you and Crowley there, if you’re free.” 

“Ha! Yes. I mean, I’m not free. Really busy. Always. But I can be. Will be. Free, I mean— I’ll— I’ll see you there, unless something comes up— it won’t, I mean. I don’t think—” 

“Sounds great!” said Anathema breezily, and gave Newt a swift peck on the cheek before sweeping out of the cafe. His knees went weak as she turned around, and he ended up knocking the chair over again. 

As he lost sight of her, Newt’s phone rang, the blaring Queen song that told him it was his boss calling. He picked up as quickly as he could, no mind that it was a Saturday morning— things like “work hygiene” did not exist in Anthony Crowley’s world. He called when he called. 

There were a lot of emails in Newt’s inbox, but he hadn’t had time to look at any of them in the morning because he’d woken up fifteen minutes late to meet with Anathema. He hoped that this would be some sort of congratulatory call, that Crowley had been able to detect from miles away that he’d just had the best date of his life with an international superstar at a dirty corner table in a cheap coffee shop.

Alas, he had set his expectations too high. Crowley was shouting into the phone, too loud and too fast for Newt to even understand a word he was saying. 

“What? What is it? Mr. Crowley, slow down, I don’t know what you—” 

“The  _ agreement,  _ you idiot, the fucking agreement from the label, it must have come through to your email by now, when I said I needed a few days to work on the song without you hanging about I in no way meant that  _ you should stop doing your damn job!”  _

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Do better, will you? I’m not ending up fucked out of royalties because you can’t be bothered to actually read! Get that thing signed and sent and don’t forget to fucking CC me!” 

“Yes, absolutely, Mr. Crowley, I’ll—” 

But he’d already hung up. 

Newt sighed, and gave a fond smile. He had noticed that days Crowley got mad at him tended to be better days than others. The regular excoriations were an indication of systemic health in their employer-employee relationship, somewhat like well-formed bowel movements. 

He hummed happily, as he opened his inbox, and found the email in question. He dutifully filled out the Downstairs songwriter agreement and letter of direction form with Crowley’s information, thinking the whole time about Anathema, and how her hand had felt beneath his. 

***

The brunch place had been one of Newt’s recommendations. The kid never seemed to actually go out to eat himself, reliably preferring the comfort of microwaved meals and Uber Eats, but for some reason he was always keeping up with the latest in food reviews, offering up suggestions and hot tips on the regular. Just another odd quirk in the conglomeration of odd quirks that made up Crowley’s Personal Assistant in his nebbishy entirety. 

Anyway, it was a cozy, upscale spot, the kind that served drinks in colored mason jars and perfectly runny eggs on slabs of polished pine. Crowley felt pretty damn out of place here, a dark vacuum in his black blazer and snakeskin boots amidst the cheery, pastel-frocked brunchers of W1J. Every few seconds he’d wonder all over again why on Earth he was here, and then he’d remember, and then his chest would roil in a renewed spasm of anxiety. 

Shit. It was already awkward, it was over,  _ why  _ on Earth had he sent that text last night just before passing out? 

Crowley had long prided himself on his self-awareness. There were plenty of things he hated about himself, but it was a source of comfort that he  _ knew  _ exactly what he hated and why. He’d worked hard at getting to that level of honesty over the years, much preferring it to the kind of methodical denial that had characterized his career peak. 

So it was infuriating, now, that he couldn’t figure out what  _ precisely _ was bothering him. The last few days had been a whirlwind, but they’d been  _ fun,  _ more fun than he’d had in ages. Working with Aziraphale had given him the kind of creative rush he’d not felt since long before Morningstar was fully done and dusted. 

Was it that Aziraphale was just someone he’d  _ used,  _ in order to shield himself from the shame of turning in a bad song that would have proved Lucie the winner in whatever weird remote mind-game she was playing? That would be in character, sure. That would be what Lucie would’ve told him was up; it was what she would’ve wanted to be true. She always did want him to be just like her, in all the ways that counted. It was when he turned out not to be, when he turned out unwilling to compromise, that she just couldn’t countenance the thought of carrying on. 

Or was it something deeper than that? Some kind of inferiority, his old juvenile complex about never having gone to uni reemerging, all noxious and spiky, after less than two days spent in the company of a refined, intelligent bloke who’d probably never even  _ seen  _ cocaine with his own two eyes? 

Newt would probably just say Crowley was feeling down because he liked Aziraphale, and he wasn’t someone who often went around liking people very much.

And he’d probably be right. Which was why Crowley had no plans to ever ask him.

Speaking of Newt, Crowley was starting to feel just a little bad for yelling at him about the whole email thing.

It wasn’t the kid’s fault that he’d only been assigned the most menial of administrative tasks by Crowley before, and had little experience with time-sensitive high-level legal agreements. Maybe if Crowley had tried a little harder, been more open to delegation… But then, he hadn’t  _ had  _ any more important work  _ to  _ delegate, not really. He’d been content to play the nostalgia circuit and dabble in vanity projects, living off royalties from 25-year-old hits.

And now that he was dipping his toe back into the major-label world, thanks to one chance meeting of Newt’s in the park, the kid was the one being punished for his relative ignorance. 

Now, Crowley  _ could  _ certainly blame Newt for gabbing that inconvenient lie about his managerial status, but that didn’t really seem fair, not when it was the basis for what might be the best thing that had happened to Crowley this decade. 

Crowley didn’t really feel like apologizing— he wasn’t so hot on apologizing, just as general practice— so instead he pulled out his phone, headed to Amazon, and purchased an expensive PDF copy of the latest UK edition of Passman’s industry-standard text  _ Everything You Need To Know About The Music Business.  _ He emailed it over to Newt with the subject line  _ LEARN,  _ and figured that was enough genuine displays of affection for the day. At least, towards his assistant, that was.

As soon as he’d sent the email, there was a flash of white in the corner of his eye, and his head snapped up so fast he cricked his neck. 

Aziraphale had arrived. He was wearing a tweed blazer with a soft-looking heather jumper underneath, and no bow-tie this time; the pale pink collar of his Oxford shirt peeked out from above the jumper’s neckline, spread open to reveal the soft dip of his collarbone. 

“Good morning,” grinned Crowley as Aziraphale approached the table, all thoughts of a certain ambiguously-competent assistant forgotten. 

“It’s three in the afternoon,” said Aziraphale, “but I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.” 

“Don’t tell me,” said Crowley, “you’ve been up since six, reading an _ improving book.”  _ He gave those last two words an ostentatiously posh twist.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes as he took his seat. “For your information, I’ve been up since  _ eight. _ ”

Crowley called the waiter over and ordered an overburdened Bloody Mary for himself. Aziraphale resisted Crowley’s cajoling to do the same, instead putting in for a light Aperol cocktail.

“So,  _ songwriter, _ ” Crowley said, once the waiter had bounced off. “How are you feeling?”

“It feels a bit like a dream,” admitted Aziraphale, looking a trifle misty-eyed. “That kind of collaboration— I mean, I don’t have much to compare it to. But it was wonderful.” 

“You’ve had a taste, now,” Crowley said with a grin. “You’re fucked. God, the first time I finished writing a song…. Honestly, I remember it better than my first kiss. And maybe even better than— well. You know.” He raised an eyebrow in a blatant display of flirtation. Yes, he probably should’ve waited until the drinks were actually on the table to start in with this sort of thing. But there was just something about Aziraphale that cried out for temptation, demanded effort on the part of an interlocutor to disrupt his sweet purity, drag it screaming down into the gutter.

Aziraphale didn’t flutter, or blush, like Crowley had perhaps been hoping he would. Instead, he leaned forward, expression earnest and interested. “Oh, you must tell me all about it. How did you— I mean, I don’t wish to pry, but— how did you become a musician? Was your family an artistic one?” 

In the 90s, at the peak of Morningstar mania, Crowley had spent hour after interminable hour talking to reporters about how the band came to be, their  _ origin story  _ drilled down into perfection by media trainings and endless repetitive Q&As. Backstage at festivals, in venue dressing rooms with tape recorders shoved into his face, exchanging endless eye-rolls with Lucie but unable to wiggle out of their contracted press obligations. 

By the end of it, he was sick to fucking death about talking about himself. He wanted to play his guitar, for fuck’s sake, and write songs, and get in the studio and just fucking  _ make music,  _ not distill his personal relationship with art down into cutesy soundbites for the cover of NME or Smash Hits. 

But telling Aziraphale the story of how it all began, how he’d saved up for months for a shitty Danelectro and Silvertone amp, only for his father to pawn them off, wasting the money on drink, and his mother not approving of music in the house anyway— it was different. 

Aziraphale was an incredible listener, genuinely enthralled by Crowley’s long-winded tale. He nodded attentively as Crowley told about how he’d stare at the ceiling, wearing out the grooves in  _ The Velvet Underground & Nico,  _ hands moving in midair, practicing in his mind every night as he earned the money to buy his gear back. He gasped when Crowley recounted how he and Lucie had said  _ fuck it,  _ and run away to London together in the dead of night, both seventeen and with only a guitar, a bass, and twenty pounds between them; how they’d found a decrepit flatshare in Camden and taught their half-deaf, fully-bald flatmate Barney the drums because they didn’t know anyone else in town but wanted to  _ play,  _ they  _ needed  _ to play. 

In the middle of an anecdote about their first ever gig, when he was drunk and dragging dramatic fingers bloodied from new guitar strings down his face to cover up his shame at forgetting the lyrics to their cover of “Moonage Daydream,” there was a chime from behind Crowley as the restaurant’s door opened, which he paid no mind— at least, not until Aziraphale suddenly went white, his eyes sliding off Crowley’s face, a worried line appearing at his brow. 

Crowley swiveled around in his seat, instantly on guard, searching out what could possibly have disturbed Aziraphale. It didn’t take long to find.

The man who’d just entered the restaurant, accompanied by a handful of hangers-on, was tall and magazine-handsome, a lavender scarf draped across his broad shoulders. Crowley recognized him from the photograph in the shop window. 

“It’s Gabriel,” Aziraphale said, his voice a quavering whisper. “He’s— he’s here— oh, goodness—” 

And then Aziraphale was pushing back his chair and, in an awkward sort of crouching pirouette, turning and rushing towards the restroom at the back of the restaurant, nearly crashing into their waiter, who was approaching with the drinks.

Crowley caught the waiter’s eye, noting the deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. “He does that sometimes. Very sensitive digestion,” he said, by way of explanation, and hurried after Aziraphale.

***


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEADS UP: the rating, as promised, has gone UP. this chapter includes explicit sexual content! :D
> 
> also: the chapter count went up. i knew this would happen and yet did not attempt to prevent it. it may still go up again given how much plot i have to get through. 
> 
> also also: i know i said there'd be a new song this week but i was wrong... NEXT WEEK THOUGH I SWEAR.

The door to the single-stalled gents’ was locked. Crowley rattled the handle urgently, and then leaned up against the door, trying to discern some signs of life inside. 

“Aziraphale.” 

“He’s over at the bar,” came a hardly audible whisper. 

“I know, I know, I saw him. Look, honestly, he doesn’t look all that great. Been letting himself go, got a bit of a paunch—” 

“He does  _ not.  _ He looks  _ amazing, _ ” whined Aziraphale. His voice had risen to a falsetto, which Crowley was doing his best, in this tense and solemn moment, not to find ridiculously adorable. 

“What can I do?” Crowley asked. “Let me— let me do something. Please.” 

“If you could order me the mushroom frittata, I’ll take it in here,” Aziraphale said primly. “And perhaps you might fetch my drink for me. I saw it had nearly arrived, and it looked delightful.” 

Crowley scoffed. “Right. Why don’t I have them do up a dessert tray for you while I’m at it, then?”

“Oh, really?” 

“ _ No!  _ Course not, you’re being ridiculous!”

There was a choked sound from inside. Crowely wondered if he was crying, or if he was holding it all in, stiff-upper-lip. “This is  _ absurd, _ ” Aziraphale said. “I’ve imagined what I would do if I saw him— I had a whole speech planned and everything.”

Crowley flexed his fingers fruitlessly around the doorknob, wishing it was Aziraphale’s hand. “Do you want to tell it to me?” 

“Oh, I—” 

Crowley stepped back as the door was pushed open gently, just a crack, so that a sliver of pale, worried face could be seen through it, centered on a glistening, ocean-gray eye. 

“If you wouldn’t mind…” 

“Course not.” Crowley slipped inside. Aziraphale was pacing in front of the sink, and Crowley only barely resisted the urge to walk up to him and take him by the shoulders, lead him through some breathing exercises. Instead, he leaned back against the door and tried to project calm and encouragement outwards. 

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale said, his eyes focused on a spot above Crowley’s head. “I don’t believe anyone has ever told you  _ no  _ before, and it’s a shame, because there’s nothing more you’ve ever needed to be told.  _ No,  _ you cannot live like a parasite, siphoning the experiences of others to hold up your facade.  _ No,  _ you cannot subsist on lies alone, without starving your soul and becoming something truly hateful. Zebediah Kent lives on the page, but I live in the real world. And when the world realizes who you really are, and all of your falsehoods and facades wither away, you will be left with nothing but the emptiness of your own heart, and all the pain you’ve caused will pay itself back fivefold, in consequences that will bring you as low as you deserve.” 

Crowley was clapping, slow at first and then fast. Aziraphale’s face was full of nervous pride, shining out from behind the fear. 

“Fuck, that is  _ brilliant.  _ You’ve got to go out there, deliver it to him, like a punch in the gut.” 

“Oh, no, I couldn’t  _ possibly—”  _ Aziraphale was pacing again, and this time Crowley failed to resist the urge to grab hold. He clapped his hands around Aziraphale’s arms, stopping him in his tracks, and looked right at him, over top of his shades. 

“Maybe later? Come on! What better time is there than right now! You’ve just written a song for Anathema Device, you’re about to have a _ hit!  _ And you look, well. You look fantastic. So come  _ on.”  _

A small, silent moment of uncertainty— then Aziraphale nodded, smiled a brave little smile, and let Crowley steer him out of the restroom, and head to where Gabriel and his coterie were waiting by the restaurant’s bar. 

(With a stop along the way for Crowley to sneer at a man who gave them an odd look as they came out of the loo together.) 

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel crowed as they approached. Too late to turn back now. His smile was of a high-watt intensity that nearly blinded Crowley, even through his sunglasses, and Crowley felt Aziraphale stiffen as Gabriel’s attention fixed itself on him. “How are you, buddy? Been a while!” 

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, reaching out and taking Gabriel’s offered hand with a dazed grin. “It’s been quite some time.” 

“And this is…?” Gabriel said expectantly, looking to Crowley, all plasticky politeness that didn’t quite reach his absurd purple eyes. 

“No. Not important,” Crowley said, deflecting. “Aziraphale has something to say, Mr. Gray, don’t you?” He tightened his grip on Aziraphale’s shoulder, willing him strength. “Don’t you, Aziraphale?” 

“Your… suit…. is very nice,” Aziraphale said. That stupid smile was still plastered on his face. Crowley wanted to rip it off. 

“Thanks, bud,” Gabriel said. “Found a new guy on Savile Row, I’d give you a referral but… you know, might be a bit out of your price range. Anyway, you’re looking….” —and here he gave Aziraphale a judgemental once-over— “... comfortable.” 

“Haa!” Aziraphale’s laugh was high and nervous and wholly unfamiliar. It was terrible. Crowley felt like he was watching one of those slow-motion building demolition videos he sometimes turned on to get to sleep. 

“What are you up to? Get any of those great projects of yours off the ground?” 

“Ah, well,” said Aziraphale, but before he could even respond, Gabriel was launching into an easy, boastful speech about how  _ The Miraculous Amalgamation of Zebediah Kent  _ was going to be adapted into a movie by the guy who made  _ Atonement,  _ and he was actually here with the executives from the film company, toasting to their new acquisition—

“Gabriel,” interrupted Crowley, taking matters into his own hands, “Aziraphale here actually has something to say to you. And it’s very important, and he’d appreciate it if you could—” 

“Listen, our table’s ready now,” Gabriel said, “but it was  _ great _ seeing you, Aziraphale, and your new boyfriend. Have a good one, guys.” 

He retreated to a far corner of the restaurant, Crowley tracking him there with a steady, unblinking gaze. 

“Please,” said Aziraphale helplessly, “let’s just go.” 

He sounded like he meant it. Looked like it, too. But one glance over at Gabriel’s pristine, unruffled silver bulk, settling in cheerily with his posh friends at his table, sent a dark thrum of urgency through Crowley. That was a man who needed to be put in his place. And if Aziraphale wasn’t able to do it himself, that was fine— he had Crowley there to do it for him. 

“One second,” Crowley said, and stalked over to Gabriel’s table. He tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, mate, it would really mean a lot if you’d just listen—” 

Gabriel stood up and faced Crowley, getting up in his personal space, as though play-acting at being best bros. “I  _ know _ what he’s going to say, pal,” he said. “You don’t need to play the messenger. It’s some cock-and-bull story about me ruining his life, I’m sure. But the truth is, your friend Aziraphale is a nasty little ass-licker, and  _ he  _ seduced  _ me  _ in order to try and boost his chances at publication. Honestly, I did everyone in the industry a favor by cutting him off.”

Gabriel had the absolute audacity to  _ laugh,  _ then, and Crowley’s back teeth ground together so hard he was sure the entire restaurant could hear. 

“He’s just a social climber, and you’re obviously his next mark. I remember you now, you know. I had my MTV phase, oh yes. Crawley, wasn’t it? I suggest you get far away from him now, while you still can—” 

“Oh, that is fucking rich, coming from someone who  _ plagiarized  _ his hard work, and then plundered his  _ life story  _ for your derivative schlock, you malodorous, deplorable colony of pungent pustules—” 

“I think you need to step away now,” said Gabriel. “We are done here.”

“Watch it, buster,” Crowley growled. The fury was singing through him, lighting up every nerve. He hadn’t felt like this since his famous onstage fight with Liam Gallagher in ‘95. He gave Gabriel a slight offensive shove, the tips of his fingers pressed to the awful man’s chest. 

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” Gabriel said through gritted teeth, and gave Crowley a slightly harder shove backwards.

Crowley hissed, “You wanna play dirty? I’ll play dirty, you mealy-mouthed brick-faced bastard—” 

“Oh, good lord,” Aziraphale said, as fists began to fly.

***

Anathema sat down on the uncomfortable sofa in Bee’s office, running one of her mantras over and over in her mind, to try and keep her aura clear as she made her way through the encounter.  _ Magic moves through me, I move through magic. I am an agent of change. Magic moves through me, I move through magic. I am an agent of change…  _

She was conscious, more than ever, of the fact that she had no manager with her. It had been wonderfully freeing, at first, cutting herself away from that asshole Brad and his coterie of sycophants, but lately she’d begun to miss having them all there to back her up, which she hated herself just a bit for. 

There was someone else in the room with Bee and Dagny, a man she didn’t recognize at first, not by name, though his face was familiar to her, probably from passing glimpses in the pages of Billboard or HITS. 

He stood up when she came in, wiping greasy palms on his jeans and then offering one to her in greeting. 

“Anathema, this is Sandy,” Bee said lazily. “Producer. You know him.” It wasn’t a question.

“Oh, of course,” said Anathema. “Sandy the Phone. You did that new Post Malone single.”

He smiled at her, his signature jeweled affectation glinting at her from between his two front teeth, and she attempted one in return, which she was pretty sure failed on launch. 

“Now, all of Sandy’s latest singles have performed very well on the charts,” Bee was saying, “and he’s just turned down executive duties on Clean Bandit’s record in order to make time for _ you,  _ and your special tune.” 

Realization was dawning on Anathema, puncturing her carefully maintained aura like a safety pin in a purple party balloon. “You mean… he’s going to work on the song? On ‘Save The World?’” 

“Of course he’s going to work on it,” Dagny snapped. “He’s already started. Sandy, go on, play her your scratch tracks.” 

From nowhere, Sandy produced a laptop, and suddenly there were uptempo loops of deep bass and screeching synth blasting through the meeting room speakers. Every thirty seconds he tapped his keyboard and a new loop would start, casting the basic chords of “Save The World” in a new and shiny sonic palette. 

They sounded good. They sounded really good; they sounded exactly like every one of Anathema’s hits from the last three years, topping the charts with comforting regularity. Perfectly mixed and composed, all side-chained hip-hop drums and plinking keyboards and slinky nu-funk guitar. 

And it was all so  _ wrong. _

“Oh, I… I really don’t think you should,” Anathema said, as gently as she could. “It sounded so much better before, the way Crowley sent it in…” 

“I can’t believe I’m having to explain this to  _ you.  _ It should be illegal for pop stars to wander around without managers, this is like a fucking daycare,” groaned Bee. She put up her hands like she was explaining something to a child. “You got your bloody hippie song, that’s all we promised to you, but now that we  _ have  _ it, we need to make it a  _ hit.  _ And that means bringing in Sandy here, and having him work his miracles on the track. Whip it into shape.” 

“But— you _ can’t!” _

“Um, of course we can,” Dagon said. “Crowley signed the songwriter agreement, on behalf of him and his co-writer. So that means we, the label, have the right to do whatever we’d like with the work, and that includes making his song a hit. Don’t worry, that has-been will be  _ grateful  _ by the end of this. Think of the royalties he and his mysterious new writer friend will rake in.” 

Anathema’s palms pressed into her legs, through the fabric of her skirt. “I mean, yeah,” she said. “I guess, but—” 

“I’ll have it all done in time for the listening party,” said Sandy. “So you’ll be able to debut it then, sans the final duet vocals of course.” 

“That’s still scheduled for next week,” said Dagny efficiently, tapping at her phone. “Abbey Road. We’ll have videographers, photographers there to document it, plenty of content for the promo pipeline.” 

“I just think—”

“Listen, Anathema. You’re a sweetheart. You care about people, that’s your whole deal, yeah?” Bee interrupted. 

Anathema nodded. She cared, she did, she cared  _ so much.  _ She cared about the world, and about all of her lovely fans, and about her backing band and all the people who worked so hard to make her tours run smoothly— engineers, lighting directors, assistants… 

“And you care about Crowley, obviously. You love that guy, for some bizarre reason. Well, think about it this way: he’ll benefit the most out of any of us if this song hits. He’ll get that big comeback he’s been dreaming of. But only if you let Sandy do his thing.” 

Anathema could sense her grip on the situation slipping. It was three against one; she had no manager, no team behind her, and yes, she had power, she had leverage, but it was all within the context of her responsibility to her own career, her relationship to the massive machine that was the label and its layers of command and commerce.

She tried another strategy. “It— the song doesn’t  _ need  _ to be a single, though— I mean, it’d be lovely if it was, but if we can keep it as an album track, without changing it as much—” 

“Oh, but it  _ will  _ be a single,” Bee said. “Cause Lucie  _ loves  _ it.”

“She actually hit me up directly,” Sandy offered. “Thought I’d be a great fit to finish it. Offered me double my usual point rate.” 

Anathema had met Lucie Ferris many times before, at meetings and parties and launches. The executive was famously short, and Anathema, even at average height, towered above her, but she always felt so small around her anyway, brought down by the piercing glare of her black eyes, the authoritative tone of her voice. Lucie was the one who made it all happen. 

“You’re under contract, Anathema. We’ve done so much for you. We’ve made you a star,” Bee said. “Don’t make this any harder for yourself than it has to be.” 

They were all staring at her. It was chilly in the label office, and she was shivering under her sheer top. She wished very much to be out of that room, to be out in the sun, to be singing as loud as she could, somewhere warm and comfortable. As much as it hurt her to realize, they weren’t wrong.

“Alright, alright,” she said. “Um. I liked that… the third version you played best, I guess… can I hear it again?”

***

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Aziraphale, guiding Crowley to the sofa of his flat, where he sprawled defeatedly, a spindly gladiator in the aftermath of something not quite resembling a victory. “It was  _ completely  _ unnecessary, making _ such  _ a scene—”

“Oh, oh— I didn’t, really, no, I did— come on, what was I supposed to say,  _ excuse me, sir, you may have ruined my friend’s life, but go on, enjoy your overpriced omelette unmolested— _ ” 

“—and your poor  _ face,  _ oh dear, and I assume you  _ still  _ don’t have a first aid kit, I’m going to have to make do,  _ don’t you move,  _ I’ll be back in a jiffy—” 

“Sorry— back in a  _ what?!”  _

Aziraphale managed to cobble together a cold compress in the kitchen, with Crowley yelling at him from the other room the whole time: “It’s what he deserved, angel! No huge twat goes unpunished! I could’ve taken him, if that waiter hadn’t interrupted…”   


As he reappeared in the doorway to the parlor, Crowley gave him a look that stopped him in his tracks, and asked, “Aziraphale, what happened out there? That speech, it would’ve been brilliant. It would have knocked him off his shitty, shiny shoes. You were raring to go, honestly. BAFTA-level performance.” 

Aziraphale shook his head. “It’s— it’s ineffable, I suppose. Simply— Not meant to be.” 

“No. Fuck that. Come on, what  _ really  _ happened? What was going on inside your head?”

The ice pack was very cold. Aziraphale gripped it a little tighter. “When I saw him I— I realized. I still feel— some kind of loyalty to him. It’s awful, but I…. do still care about what he thinks. Very much so.” 

“How on Earth is that possible? He’s a jerk.” 

“He’s _ not,  _ he’s very—”

“Oh, please. You know I’m right, he’s a jerk, he’s the absolute  _ worst.  _ I think,” and here Crowley pointed an accusatory finger, “that that book of his is part of you, and you’re  _ afraid  _ of letting go of it. You’re scared of what you’ll be without it.” 

Aziraphale swallowed. “Oh. I see.” 

“No, sorry— Jesus, that came out  _ so _ wrong,” Crowley moaned, flinging himself forward, his hands up in supplication. “I meant— Aziraphale, fuck, you are far too talented, and lovely, and intelligent, all on your own, to let your life revolve around the product of a brain as obviously diseased as his. You’re worth more. Christ,  _ so  _ much more. And, yeah. That’s— that’s all.” 

Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s good intentions like a lighthouse beacon shining through the fog of sheer conversational ineptitude, so he let the intended compliment wash over him without resistance. “That’s… wonderfully sensitive, Crowley, especially for a man who wears such tight jeans.” 

“It forces all the blood to my heart.” 

Aziraphale’s feet began to move of their own accord, and he found himself suddenly sitting, perched on the edge of the sofa, his thigh against Crowley’s as he leaned over and removed those designer shades, placed them gently on the side table. 

The glasses had scored long red curves into Crowley’s face where they’d been ground in as Gabriel held him up against the wall. Crowley’s cheek was scraped fairly deep from the brick, and Aziraphale pressed the ice ever-so-carefully against the inflamed marks. 

Crowley flinched slightly; Aziraphale put a hand on his shoulder to still him as he soothed the wounds. 

“Are you okay? How does it feel?” 

Crowley’s lower lip—pink, plush, unmarred— trembled slightly, then formed a gentle smirk. “Feels— well. Feels like I got punched in the face by an American, s’what it feels like.” 

“And here?” Aziraphale moved the ice over to the bruise that was beginning to blossom, just slightly, under his left eye. “Any better?” 

“Maybe. D’you think I’ll have a scar? I hope so. Might do well to make me handsome.” 

“Excuse me,” said Aziraphale, heart in his throat, “you were already very handsome before. I don’t believe any improvement was needed, whatsoever.” 

His words hung in the air, utterly un-take-backable. A moment, suspended; the shore empty, before the great wave bore down. What had he done? 

And then suddenly Crowley was surging forwards and kissing Aziraphale, so hard and so sudden that he didn’t even have time to protest, to push him away, to say,  _ oh, there must be some mistake—  _

The icepack was lost immediately somewhere below the sofa as Aziraphale sighed into Crowley, letting the angles of him fit themselves to his own soft shape, as they toppled over onto the cushions. 

Crowley was an  _ excellent  _ kisser, devilish and enthusiastic. His tongue, so practiced at forming choruses and harmonies, was equally as adept here, warm and lovely.

He was responsive in an almost telepathic way, seeming to sense exactly when Aziraphale wanted more, wanted less, wanted deeper or lighter or a moment to breathe. His hands roamed up and down Aziraphale’s body, one moment combing through his hair in furiously gentle sweeps, the next adeptly finding pressure points on his wrists and hands. The little sounds Crowley made, too, the sighs and huffs and soft groans as he found new parts of Aziraphale to touch, were nearly as wonderful as the touches themselves.

A laugh of light-headed delight was threatening to rise up inside Aziraphale. But then Crowley rearranged them both, into a position that allowed for better access of his broad hand to Aziraphale’s backside, and Aziraphale was suddenly staring right at the Morningstar poster hanging prominently on the wall beyond the sofa. 

He was looking at the fine-boned, feminine shape of Lucie Ferris draped intimately against a twenty-something Crowley, both washed out in the iconic high contrast of late 90s photography, and the laughter vanished before it could be born, replaced by something gray and hard, deep in his chest. 

“Wh— something wrong?” 

“I thought you and— but wasn’t she— I mean, aren’t you— you’re not—” Aziraphale pointed, uselessly, at the poster, trying to convey the nuance and depth of his utter bewilderment. 

Crowley twisted to see, and came back around with an enormous and confusing laugh.

“Fuck, I forget you’ve never read NME, angel,” Crowley said. “ _ ‘Anthony Crowley plays for both teams’ _ — massive headline right around Y2K. Those were the days.” 

“So you’re—” Aziraphale began, but stopped short with an  _ oh!  _ as Crowley curled a hand into his fist and removed one finger, kissed it, then another, and then another. 

“One… two… three... “ he said, between kisses. “On the scale, you know. Right down the middle.” 

“Ah. Right,” Aziraphale said. “Well. Er. Congratulations?” 

“Honestly, you thought I was straight? I’m offended.” 

“You’re a _ rockstar,” _ Aziraphale said, as demurely as he could manage with Crowley’s lips brushing his knuckles, his tongue running across each fingertip. “I know your type. I’ve been fooled before.” 

“Tell me about it,” said Crowley. “I’m sorry, though. I guess I was so relieved I didn’t have to play the game with you, I forgot you might have to play it with me. Selfish.” 

“Not at all,” said Aziraphale. “Never that. Put it out of your mind.” 

“Done,” said Crowley, and slid off the sofa, pulling Aziraphale with him. 

The plush shag carpeting on the floor of the parlor had, it seemed, been specifically laid down as a backdrop to this impossible afternoon. It was far more comfortable than it looked, though that might have been a pseudo-hallucinogenic effect of all the desire, dense in the air, softening everything around them. 

“Watch the guitars,” Crowley hissed, and they did an awkward horizontal shuffle out of the way, towards the center of the rug. 

“Oh, of course. One must think of your career, in moments like this.”

“Shut up.” 

As they kissed, Crowley’s hands worked their way up Aziraphale’s shirt, undoing the buttons and finding the swell of his stomach, his sensitive nipples. As he removed Aziraphale’s bowtie, alarms in Aziraphale’s head were all going off at once, a riotous clamor of  _ What on Earth are you doing?  _ and  _ This can only end poorly  _ and  _ You’re too old for this  _ and  _ He’s famous, you’re nobody!  _

But then Crowley, having cast the offending accessory aside, nosed up, nipped gently at his earlobe, and everything collapsed down into a neutron star of sensation, impossibly small and impossibly dense, drawing all of Aziraphale’s attention to his body, to the blood rushing in his head and...elsewhere. 

And that gave him courage to do the same, to attack Crowley’s t-shirt with enthusiasm, getting it off and over his head so he could reciprocate, kissing lines down Crowley’s ribs, breathing in deep a scent he’d caught the night before, when Crowley had first held him close. It was dark and clean, all spice and pine and something sweetly smoky, and more familiar than it ought to have been.

“We’ve only just met, but I feel like I know you so well,” Aziraphale said quietly. “Is that odd?” 

“S’what making music together does,” Crowley answered. “Making any art together. Gets you— right in there. Connects you deeper and faster than anything in the world. Like a shortcut.” 

There was something fragile about the way he said that, as if Aziraphale looked any closer at it, asked him to explain it further, it would shatter, and take this whole shining moment with it. So he changed the subject. “Listen, it’s, er. It’s been a while, since I’ve been with anyone…” 

“You want to— raincheck? We can take it easy, if you need, no worries—” 

“Oh, no no— please, I’d very much like to—” He cleared his throat, smiling, shook his head. “I just don’t want you to, ah, expect much. Of me, that is.” 

“Aziraphale. Whatever the hell my expectations were, you’ve already exceeded them. Everything past just— just  _ touching  _ you is pure dessert, promise. Like cake. A lot of very good cake. And—” His eyes went a bit unfocused, and his mouth dropped slightly open, but no sound came out. Instead he just kissed Aziraphale again, slow and deep, but when he drew back Aziraphale was eyeing him with curiosity. 

“Was there something you were going to—” 

“Oh, god, I was going to say  _ and I’m still hungry  _ but even I can’t stoop that low, sorry— yes, please, will you just—!” 

“Why, of course,” Aziraphale said, and with deliberate and unhurried motions, continued the business he had begun at Crowley’s waistband. Soon— though seemingly not soon enough for Crowley, who let out a whine he stifled with the back of his hand— his cock was freed, red and eager, absolutely as lovely as the rest of him. 

Crowley propped himself up on one elbow, the other hand in Aziraphale’s hair as Aziraphale ever-so-slowly took him into his mouth. His small sounds of pleasure broke out into bigger ones, lengthy, shameless groans that made Aziraphale’s cock jump inside his own trousers even as Crowley’s lay hot on his tongue. 

“ _ ‘No expectations’ _ — angel, you really need to get a grip on your self-image, you’re  _ so  _ good at thisss...” 

Aziraphale was glad Crowley probably couldn’t spot his blush from this angle; he renewed his efforts, taking Crowley deeper, and bringing a hand round to gently cup at Crowley’s balls, a slight pressure that made Crowley’s thighs begin to shake, just slightly. 

Then he drew back, breathing slowly, and held off just long enough for Crowley to let out a needy, half-breathed, “Aziraphale,  _ c’mon—”  _

“Just admiring the view,” Aziraphale said, before returning to the task at hand. He pressed a kiss to Crowley’s tip, which turned into a slow lick, and then, feeling Crowley’s desperation, gave him everything he had, topped off with a deliberate swallow which did its job marvelously.

Crowley’s moan as he came would have been loud enough to worry Aziraphale, had he not been subject to a fifteen-minute lecture the previous night regarding the room’s state of the art soundproofing system. As it were, there was no chance anyone other than Aziraphale could hear, and so he had no possible objections to make. 

Aziraphale moved to lie down next to Crowley and kiss him there, not wanting to bother him to get up, but Crowley was already up on his knees. He was kissing Aziraphale as he moved them over across the rug, until Aziraphale’s back was up against the sofa, and then with a motion of his head indicated what was to be done. 

Aziraphale obediently climbed up to sit, and Crowley knelt below. He displayed none of the cautious reverence Aziraphale had tried to demonstrate earlier, very nearly ripping the clasp of Aziraphale’s trousers in his enchanting haste to get at what was underneath. 

Before Aziraphale could even issue a note of warning, a reminder they were in no rush, Crowley was licking a long, hot stripe up his cock, and it was  _ everything,  _ that damn tongue—! 

He looked up, met Aziraphale’s eye, as if to ask, but how could he possibly think he needed to ask? Aziraphale, in answer, reached out to push a lock of copper hair gently out of his eyes, and left a thumb lingering at his brow. He smiled, and nodded.

Then Crowley’s fingers dug hard into Aziraphale’s thighs, sharp and immediate even through the fabric of his trousers, and he leaned helplessly back on the sofa as Crowley gifted his cock with infinite attention, as swift as Aziraphale had been leisurely. 

Aziraphale’s breath came quicker, and quicker still as Crowley, who didn’t seem to need to breathe, worked his magic. He tried to hold back, he really did, he would’ve liked for this to go on until the sun had set outside, the stars had come out, and Crowley would still yet have his mouth on Aziraphale’s cock— and oh, that fantasy combined with just the gentlest scrape of Crowley’s teeth was  _ more  _ than enough, and he broke his silence to cry out: “Oh,  _ Crowley—”  _

He could barely wait until Crowley had finished drinking him down; weak-limbed and blissed out, he slid back off the sofa and wrapped Crowley in his arms, kissing the taste of his own spend off Crowley’s mouth, careful to avoid the scrapes and bruises when he brought his hands up to caress Crowley’s face. 

Then they were both on the floor again, nestled against each other, and Aziraphale chanced a clear-eyed look at the man beside him. Crowley’s eyes were closed; the charming lines around them faded into relaxation, only the barest of hints at the wicked grins that had caused them. 

“I can _ feel  _ you staring at me, you know,” he muttered, his voice low and drowsy. 

“Sorry,” Aziraphale said automatically, and then reconsidered. “Actually, I don’t think I am.” 

He half-drifted dreamily off, then, for perhaps a few minutes, but even an orgasm wasn’t enough to trick his intransigent, insomniac biology into allowing such an unconscionable luxury as a full afternoon nap. 

Crowley, however, was clearly not a man who operated under the same restrictions. Based on what he knew of him thus far, Aziraphale suspected he could—and would— fall asleep anywhere. And right now, that was draped over Aziraphale, an arm slung over his chest and a leg kicked in between his knees. 

Aziraphale was perfectly content to lie there, watch the late-afternoon sunset filter in, slow and honeylike, through the flat’s massive picture windows, picking out gleaming golden details on the guitars and award statuettes dotted across the room. 

His mind was happily uncrowded; for the first time in so very long he could not feel an ambient buzz of discomfort or anxiety, though he knew it was not gone, only in retreat. Still, the silence was a pleasure in and of itself, no matter how impermanent.

Sooner it was to be, apparently. After maybe twenty minutes Aziraphale became aware that Crowley’s phone was ringing, vibrating loudly in the pocket of his trousers, which were lying out of reach halfway across the carpet. 

_ Oh, dear, _ Aziraphale thought.  _ It could be someone important. It could be the label, or even Anathema!  _

With reluctant precision, he untangled himself from Crowley’s possessive limbs, and crawled over to pluck the phone out of its hiding spot. 

“Hello?” 

“Crowley? Um, you sound different.” 

Aziraphale recognized the tremulous voice on the other end of the line. It was that young man, Crowley’s assistant. “This is Aziraphale speaking. Crowley is—” he cast a glance at Crowley, naked and curled up now around thin air, looking awfully lonely—”not available, at the moment. Is there something I can help you with?” 

“Oh, hi, Aziraphale. This is Newt. I’m Crowley’s personal assistant—”

“Yes, I know who you are—” 

“—and it’s just that— well, he has a gig tonight. It’s in his calendar. I’m here setting up, and he isn’t…. So… maybe you could remind him? If he’s there with you?” 

“A— a  _ gig?”  _

“Yeah, it’s a charity concert down at the Embankment. It starts in twenty minutes…?” 

“... Oh, _ fuck.”  _

_ *** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stole two things directly from the movie in this chapter: a bunch of bits from aziraphale's speech, and then the "that's wonderfully sensitive" bit. sometimes you just have to respect that you can't do it better, you know?


	7. Chapter 7

In an ideal world, Crowley would have been spending that evening repeating the events of the afternoon. Variations on a theme; perhaps introducing some new motifs, such as fingers. 

But it seemed as though though he’d already used up his allocation of good tidings for the day— hence the rude awakening, the groan of realization, and the subsequent frantic scramble for clothing, sunglasses, and assorted musical gear. 

“Do you need any help with those, my dear?” said Aziraphale, as Crowley struggled into his jeans. 

“Absolutely _not,_ don’t you dare, _”_ Crowley hissed, but he ultimately failed to protest when Aziraphale came over and helped tug them over his bony hips. 

They had to turn back halfway down the corridor when Crowley realized he’d somehow forgotten his guitar, and then they got all the way to the lobby before Crowley let out a howl, and darted back towards the lift to retrieve his pedalboard. 

Finally, they were loading the gear into an Uber, then clambering in themselves, and Crowley could take a moment to breathe, and actually think about what was happening. Think, meaning, sit in a simmering stew of second-guesses. 

He’d just slept with Aziraphale. Who he’d met less than a week ago. This in itself was not wildly out of the ordinary— Crowley was no lothario, but he’d had his fair share of hookups in his time, especially in those woozy, insecure days immediately post-Lucie. 

And he sure liked Aziraphale a fair lot more than some of those faceless men and women; knew him better, knew that he _was_ better, even. 

The truth was, it wouldn’t really have been all that complicated— except for the fact that he’d written a damn _song_ with him, and it was about to be the next single for one of the biggest artists in the world. 

He’d said it himself: it was a shortcut. Months of small-talk and flirting and getting-to-know-you bullshit cut right through like a hot knife through butter. 

When he’d met Lucie it had been like this. Instant. Immediate. Her basslines had filled his head and his heart and led him all the way to London, and from there to small stages and then bigger ones, to label boardrooms and festivals and countries halfway across the world, where everyone somehow knew him already, _loved_ him already. Loved them both, as a single unit. 

Singing out her words every night, hearing them atop his own melodies, had made her into a part of him. He hadn’t even realized how deep she’d been embedded until she’d torn herself away, leaving a wound too wide to stitch up. It had been like being cored out, vivisected. 

Crowley stared straight ahead but he still saw Aziraphale’s bright white-blonde hair out of the corner of his eye. God, did he have a type. But when he breathed in, the scent was different, and utterly new. It was gentle and mature, with just a hint of sharpness cutting through the paper-dust. 

So maybe, just maybe, Aziraphale would be different, too. 

The arrival of their conveyance at the venue was perfectly timed with the frantic climax of Crowley’s internal monologue, leading him to practically leap out of the car in order to more quickly switch his full focus to the task at hand. Playing a gig? _That_ he could do, and would do, with no small measure of gratitude, as the music centered him, grounded him, made everything make a bit more sense for a little while. 

The charity event was in full swing; middle-aged women circulated through the large tent that’d been struck up in the middle of Victoria Tower Gardens. Aziraphale pushed the rolling cart holding Crowley’s amplifier over to the small stage that had been set up, and Crowley followed behind with his guitar, board, and cables. 

Newt had already set up the rented sound system and the soundboard, and lit up in visible relief as the two of them approached. 

Crowley slung the amp onstage, and then clapped a hand on Newt’s shoulder. “Great job, kid,” he said. 

“Really?”

“I mean, not really. You should’ve sent me a reminder email earlier in the day about this! It was booked months ago, there’s no way you could’ve expected me to remember, like I’m some kind of— of— remembering person!” 

“But I _did,_ you just never—” 

“You did just fine, Newton,” Aziraphale said kindly, earning a glower from Crowley. 

At this point it was far past time for Crowley to take the stage, so Aziraphale wandered off to the side, out of the way of the crowd of Gen X professionals who were now turning their attention from their canapes to the skinny personification of nostalgia about to kick off his set. 

He began with some of Morningstar’s more minor hits, from later in their heyday: “Seventh Day” and “Asked and Answered.” He remembered their last appearance on Jools Holland, when they’d debuted the songs to a national audience. Lucie had already been fucking the guy from the label by then, already undermining Crowley’s creative vision for the band, already changing in ways he never imagined, making herself unrecognizable to him— or, perhaps, as he’d realized only after years had gone by, revealing who she’d been all along.

Instead of actually confronting her about it, he got in a massive screaming row with one of the producers, demanding they be able to play live to the cameras instead of lipsync. Eventually Lucie had plied him with enough whiskey from the greenroom to shut him up, and he’d stumbled, bitter and drunk, through the taping. Ah, good times. 

The crowd went wild for “Demon Heart,” like they always did, and Crowley felt the rush of it, the rightness of it, the sense of reclamation in singing these lyrics as if they were his, and his only. Yes, ostensibly he was getting paid to play this dinky little event, but it was as much an act of maintenance for his heart as it was for his wallet. 

After “Demon Heart” he usually segued right into “Black Boots,” but he wanted to change it up this time. He meandered to the side of the stage as he played the outro solo, and hissed to Newt, “Get ‘Nebula’ queued up for next, okay?” 

Newt lifted a headphone, as if he hadn’t quite heard right. “But you _never_ do ‘Nebula,’ you said it was, er, ‘unbearable trite nonsense’—” 

“Look, you’ve got the bloody backing track, haven’t you?!” 

“Well, yes, it’s all loaded here—” 

“So queue it up! And stop asking questions!” 

Newt, bless his little tryhard heart, obeyed posthaste, and the opening piano chords of “Nebula” rang out through the sound system. It was a slower song, a bit of a ballad, that started spare and gradually built up to a ringing crescendo.

Crowley let his sunglasses slip just far enough down his nose so that he could look over at Aziraphale without a barrier between them. He gave him a wink, and then returned his attention forwards, to the crowd that was now fully warmed up. 

_Attract me to you_  
_I am dense and I am dark_  
_Vast and moving_  
_Make your magic, make your mark_

_I’ll form it all within me_  
_I’ll compress and then I’ll scream_  
_We’ll meet inside a nebula_  
_A stardust garden of a dream_

_Don’t even need to know your name, babe_  
_To know all the things you’ve done_  
_All I need’s a silhouette_  
_Cause it’s like looking at the sun_

_Has anybody come this close_  
_Or am I the first one to find_  
_The shape of all your afternoons_  
_The pleasure is mine_

After the set ended, Crowley had to shoo Aziraphale away multiple times from the stage as he and Newt packed up. It was bad enough he had been pressed into service to lug the amp to and from the car on the way here; with Newt present, there was no reason at all for him to have to put in work. The only thing those soft hands should be lifting was a pen to paper. 

“By the way,” Newt was saying, as he coiled cables, “I went out with Anathema this morning. We got coffee.” 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Look at you go. She still thinks you’re my manager, does she?” 

“Um. Yes?” Crowley could tell Newt was being prepared to be chewed out, but Crowley was suddenly oddly uncomfortable at the thought of continuing to engage in their time-honored antagonism in front of Aziraphale. Aziraphale might start to think he genuinely hated the kid, and Crowley couldn’t have that. 

“Well, er. I suppose that’s fine, then. For now. Just don’t go doing anything stupid, yeah?” 

“Of course not!” 

“Did she… have anything to say? About the song? Just wondering.” 

“Well, no. Sort of. Actually, yes, maybe— um. She’s having a party on Tuesday, a sort of listening party for the new record. And she wants you to come.” 

“Really?” Crowley perked up, interested. It had been ages since he’d been to a real music industry party. They’d stopped inviting him sometime around the time Lucie had started working at Downstairs, though to be fair, he’d stopped actually _going_ years before that, and maybe they just wanted to save paper. “That sounds terrific, I’m there. Aziraphale, you can come with.” 

Aziraphale looked like he’d just been wrongly accused of a murder. “Me? You want to bring— _me?”_

“Course I do. It’ll be a hoot.”

“I don’t know. A pop star’s shindig? My dear, I really don’t know if that’s quite my milieu…” 

“Please. I’ll need some arm candy, eh?” 

“Crowley!” scolded Aziraphale, but he couldn’t suppress his smile. 

“Arm _cake,_ then, whatever you want to call it, but I want you to come with me. I haven’t been to one of these to-dos since Leona Lewis was top of the charts. I want to see if they’ve invented any new terrible drinks.” 

Aziraphale folded his arms, deep in thought. Crowley wasn’t entirely above begging; he was consumed with the idea of seeing Aziraphale Fell, very possibly the least music industry man to ever live, part the sea of phonies and suck-ups that the party was sure to consist of. 

“I’ll go, under one condition.” 

“What is it?” Crowley crossed his fingers for something innuendo-filled, or perhaps a demand for more expensive brunches, tickets to a museum exhibition— he’d do whatever it took. 

Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled with benevolent mischief. “You have to come round to dinner. At my flat, with my sister and niece. How does Monday evening sound?” 

“Your— sister? The—” He mimed the selfie attack he’d been subject to at their previous meeting. “That one?” 

“Yes, _that one._ She has _so_ many questions about you, Crowley. She’s been bothering me nonstop ever since I told her we were working together.”

Oh, fuck. Crowley was fine with kids, but the thought of spending an entire evening with a— a _fangirl_ who probably knew his entire discography back to front made his skin crawl. What if she started parroting tabloid headlines from fifteen years ago, making him bat away old rumors while serving him salad? What if she’d been one of the unlucky few to buy his solo record, and had him sit there and explain all of his unforgivable, idiotic lyrical choices? 

He wanted to say no, he really did. But the way Aziraphale was looking at him, bright and bashful and coquettishly pleading, was like a karate chop to the jugular of his volition. 

“Fine. _Fine._ Newt, put it in my calendar,” he said, although there was no way he’d possibly forget. This prompted a literal, actual clap of the hands in delight from Aziraphale— somehow, it managed to seem not cartoonish at all, when he did it— and Crowley gave as casual a shrug as possible, telling himself that it’d all be worth it.

  
  


***

On Monday morning, Crowley had asked Newt to run his parlor rug to the cleaning spot, which wasn’t technically within Newt’s purview— but then again, maybe only 50% of the things Crowley tasked him with were things that a musician’s Personal Assistant should reasonably be expected to do. At least he got paid, though. 

He’d toted the rug there sticking out the back of Dick Turpin, paid the extra fee for One Hour Clean per Crowley’s instructions, and then wandered out down the block to find a way to waste time before the pick-up. 

To his own surprise, since he was never really the type to know exactly where he was at any given moment, he turned a corner, and found himself walking up to the Sony building that housed the offices of Downstairs Records. 

And then, with a start, he recognized the man— boy, really, since he looked to be right around Newt’s age, and Newt certainly didn’t think of _himself_ as a man, not yet— who was loitering on the pavement outside the entrance, smoking a casual cigarette. Slight and dark-haired, he was the rabbity assistant who’d led Crowley and Newt into the room where they’d met with Anathema last week. 

_Anathema._ Newt hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for a single second. He’d attended to Crowley’s technical needs at the gig on Saturday, and shown up at the usual hour that day to report for duty, going over invoices and getting assigned a to-do list, but his mind had been half-elsewhere the whole time. 

He’d been hearing her voice. He’d been seeing the far-off, morose look in her eyes when she told him the label might force a change to the song. He’d been feeling the soft warmth of her hand, smelling the mix of incense and jasmine that pervaded the air around her. Had he ever really been close enough to inhale that scent? 

A vague idea began bubbled up in the back of Newt’s head, likely the chemical byproduct of spending too much time around Crowley and the man’s dual obsessions with espionage films and American romantic sitcoms. If Newt could get some intel off this insider, maybe he could use it to Anathema’s advantage, prove to her that he was worthy of being what he said he was. 

“‘Scuse me, d’you have a light?” 

The boy nodded, proffered a sleek black lighter and raised it to Newt’s cigarette.

“Thanks, mate.” 

“No problem.”

Newt took a drag and breathed the smoke out perfectly casually, if he did say so himself. He’d never been more grateful that Crowley had peer-pressured him into picking up the habit a few months into his employment. Then he very nearly fell down a mental hole wondering if it still counted as peer pressure if the person who pressured you was in charge of your salary, but managed to bring himself back around to awareness. 

“You work here? Sony?” he asked the boy.

“Yeah. Executive assistant at Downstairs. Eric’s the name. You? I’ve seen you around, I think…” 

“Newt. I was in the other day, actually. I’m— a manager. ” 

“Lucky bastard.” 

“Lucky? Why lucky?” 

Eric gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Managers can do what they like, innit? No corporate red tape, no bloody shareholders to please. Just the artist, and what the artist needs.” 

“Yup, for sure,” said Newt, who genuinely had no idea if anything Eric was saying was actually true. “Um. What’s it like, working for Bee? She seems… intense.” 

“Oh, it’s hell, let me tell you. It’s like, she thinks there’s a dozen of me! But there’s not! There’s only one!” His voice took on a note of panic. “I eat lunch at my desk. I stay till nine, ten most nights. And— can I tell you a secret? I picked up smoking, just so that I could have an excuse to take breaks!” 

“That sounds awful, I’m sorry,” said Newt sincerely. “But, um. Being a manager is hard work too, you know.”

Eric rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure. But you’ve got the _power_. Used to be, labels were top dog, right?”

“...Right.” 

“I was at Polydor before this, marketing coordinator. It was kind of a lateral move, but I thought, all I want to do is A&R, all I want to do is make hits. And I wanted to work for Downstairs because they’re fucking legendary— but it was bad timing. Everything’s going vertical, in-house and independent, and _everyone_ knows it. The labels are panicking, scrambling for control, because they _know_ the artists don’t need them anymore.”

“They don’t?”

Eric looked at him funny. “You _know,_ man. Digital distro. Crowdfunding and direct-to-consumer and viral campaigns. A label is a relic of an industry that hardly exists anymore. Like, it kills me to have to walk artists into the office every day, knowing that they’re about to sign their lives away. If I could, I’d tell them, don’t fucking do it. You don’t need to. If you’ve got fans, if the _songs_ are good… labels can’t do a damn thing for you that you can’t do yourself.” 

He flinched as his smartwatch vibrated on his wrist. Reading the message, he frowned, and then flicked his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out. “Duty calls. Got to go hand out bottled water to some Americans."

“Good luck,” said Newt, because it seemed like the right thing to say, even though the task didn’t sound particularly daunting. 

Eric seemed to take it to heart, though, giving Newt a wistful smile and a thumbs up before disappearing back inside the lobby. 

Newt watched him go, and smoked his cigarette down to a stub, thinking as hard as he possibly could all the while. 

The contract. It was, seemingly, all about the contract. He didn’t know what that _meant,_ really, not yet. But a real manager would. And that’s who Anathema thought he was, so that’s who he was going to have to be. 

***

Aziraphale took the morning shift at the crystal shop on Monday, and tried his best to treat it like any other work day. 

But it was beyond strange, to be back at his boring job, doing the same dull inventory and ringing up the same three-for-one deals on chunks of amethyst. As though nothing had changed, as though he hadn’t spent three days in the company of a real-life rock star, days that had spectacularly culminated in making love on a shag carpet and then—if he wasn’t mistaken— being genuinely _serenaded._

The customers kept giving him odd looks, which might have been due to the fact that he kept smiling and humming to himself, letting his fingers dance across the counter to the rhythm of “Save The World” and even, once, executing a carefree little twirl. 

After handing off to Tracy for the afternoon shift, he sat in the cafe around the corner with his usual soup and sandwich and book to read, but not only did he find himself uninterested in the words on the page, he hardly had it in him to _eat._

How could this pedestrian meal compare to the taste of something so impossible he’d had, thanks to Crowley? Yes, literally— he could still call up the taste of Crowley, dense and hot on his tongue— but also figuratively. He’d thought his chance to make art had forever passed him by, the province of a past self that he was barred entry to now in this dull present. 

The rest of the afternoon seemed to drag on endlessly, but at last it was evening, and the hour arrived.

Tracy had gone nearly mad with the preparations for dinner, as though she were about to play host to an entire fleet of crown princes. She’d gone full-on Nigella Lawson— multiple courses, two bottles of the _good_ wine, candles and the cloth napkins and a full spread of pastries and puddings for afterwards.

The buzzer rang and Tracy began to fan herself. “He’s _here,_ he’s actually here— oh, dear, I don’t think I can handle this at all, actually, I haven’t done _nearly_ enough cleaning—” 

“Let me get the door, you stay there and just do your deep breathing. Oh, and Tracy—”

“Yes?”

“I slept with him, by the way,” Aziraphale said, utterly deadpan, and turned on his heel towards the door before she could pick her jaw up off the ground. Her furious, impotent glares at him every few minutes as she helped welcomed Crowley inside were utterly priceless. 

During dinner, Aziraphale kept having to look over to confirm that Crowley was actually there, and nearly melting with affectionate relief to see him still sprawled in his chair and acting the perfect houseguest, wineglass in hand. 

“The witch man was back today, Aziraphale, after you’d left,” Tracy was saying, which resulted in a groan from Pepper. 

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale, shaking his head. 

“Witch man?” Crowley said, his brow furrowed. 

Aziraphale turned to him. “He’s a fellow from the neighborhood,” he explained, “who is convinced that the shop is a— how does he put it, Trace?”

“A den of occultism,” Tracy listed off, “a haven of witchery, a lair of demonic iniquity…” 

“I believe my favorite was ‘a pestilent burrow of demonic wiles, in dire need of a good flushin’ out,’” Aziraphale offered, in a decent impression of the fellow’s bizarre burr. 

“Well, I think you should buy a bow and arrow, that way you can shoot at him if he comes in again,” Pepper suggested, lifting up her fork to rather accurately mime a crossbow firing.

“That seems a bit harsh, dear,” Aziraphale said. 

“He’s really not _all_ that bad,” Tracy mused. “He seems quite educated, actually. If he’d just calm down for long enough for me to speak to him, I always like to think I could make him see reason… but then I lose my nerve, and just threaten to call the police until he leaves.” 

“Pepper, I like the way you’re thinking,” said Crowley. “Would you be shooting to kill?”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Of _course_ not,” she said. “It would be like in spy movies, where you bang up all the bad guys on your way into the hideout but you’re not _really_ killing them, because you’re the good guy, just sort of knocking them about, so you can go hit the big red button, or whatever.” 

“Spy movies?” said Crowley, his eyebrows shooting up past his shades. “You’re into that sort of thing, then?” 

“Oh, yes! I got the James Bond box set last Christmas, I’ve watched them all!”

“That’s all well and good, but have you ever played GoldenEye?”

Aziraphale watched with growing delight as Pepper and Crowley traded quotes and trivia back and forth, Crowley’s wineglass threatening to tip over as he gestured ever-more expansively. 

“So, Crowley,” Tracy interrupted eventually, and Aziraphale sensed Crowley tense beside him. “Tell me about this song you’ve written with Aziraphale. I’m dying to hear all about it.” 

Crowley visibly relaxed, and started chattering away about the song and the demo session with Aziraphale and Anathema Device herself.

Then that tripped off Pepper again, who ran back to her room to grab all of her Anathema merchandise, t-shirts and magazines and every branded lipstick from the Midnight Collection collaboration with Topshop, which she claimed she didn’t buy to _wear_ because cosmetics were tools of patriarchal repression but she just thought the case they came in was _so_ cute.

Crowley offered to buy them off her, since she obviously wasn’t putting them to good use, and she countered by rejecting the concept that _he,_ a grown man, was any more likely to wear lipstick than she was. 

He then whipped out his phone and pulled up pictures from the 90s, featuring his legendary stage looks, coated in all manner of cosmetics, which rendered Pepper at first speechless, and then more excited than ever. 

By the time dessert made it out, Tracy still hadn’t asked a single question about Lucie, Pepper had seemingly made a new best friend, and Crowley was so relaxed it was a wonder he didn’t slide right out of his chair into a puddle at Aziraphale’s feet. 

Aziraphale saw Crowley out afterwards, down the stairs all the way to the foyer. He didn’t want him to go— he wanted to drag him back up to the flat and into his bedroom, where he could claw at Crowley’s skinny red tie until it came undone, reveal his shadowed collarbone. He’d press his mouth to the skin and feel the flicker of Crowley’s pulse as it sped up.

But tonight had already been so wonderful— everything he could’ve asked for, really, so he hardly thought he deserved to ask for more. Even now, as Crowley lingered on the threshold, about to step out into the night, Aziraphale was frozen, just breathing, looking up at him. 

Once again, Crowley was the one to cross over that line. He leaned forward, just an inch or two, and pressed a soft, simple kiss to Aziraphale’s mouth. Aziraphale sighed into it, letting his mouth open, tasting the inside of Crowley’s, still wine-soaked from dinner. 

He pulled back before he could get too overwhelmed, and said, “So— I’ll see you Tuesday, then? The party?” 

Crowley nodded. “I got the address from Newt. It’s actually pretty close to mine. Um. You could— come over, before? And we could walk there. If you’re not busy, of course…?” 

“Oh, I—” Aziraphale blinked. “Yes, I… I think that’d be lovely.” 

“Brilliant.” Crowley’s smile ached to be kissed again, but Aziraphale held back. It would not do to be overenthusiastic, this early on. “Bye, then,” Crowley said as he stepped out, and then just as Aziraphale was about to swing the door closed, he added: “Angel.” 

“Crowley is _amazing,_ Aziraphale,” Pepper said, when Aziraphale reentered the flat. She was curled up on the sofa, watching a playlist of old Morningstar videos on her iPad. “He’s like, literally the coolest guy _ever.”_

“Yes,” Aziraphale replied. “Yes, I really think he is.” 

***

The party was being held at a truly ridiculous flat, a hollowed-out monstrosity of a historic building that was emblematic of everything wrong with the London real estate market. From the outside, the facade was that of some kind of Victorian workhouse, but once Crowley and Aziraphale made it through the gauntlet of the dangerous-looking security men posted outside and the host checking names and IDs, they found themselves inside a massive white-and-chrome space, everything polished and modern. It certainly didn’t seem as though Anathema had had a choice in picking the space; Crowley would have put money on the label vetoing her choice for a haunted mansion, and supplying this spot as a second choice.

They were a bit late after meeting up first at Crowley’s, and, well, losing track of time a bit, so when they arrived the party was in full swing. A DJ up on the landing of the glass staircase in the middle of the room was spinning a playlist of all of Downstairs’ latest hits, including many of Anathema’s, and the entire place was full up with men and women, schmoozing and giggling under huge posters of Anathema’s logo. 

Crowley really thought he’d be in his element, despite the party hiatus of the past decade, but as it turned out, becoming a has-been did a number on one’s ability to stay blind to the depressing inanity of these kinds of events. 

In a surprise upset, Aziraphale seemed to be the one having more fun. Maybe it was the huge spread of pastries on a table in the high-ceilinged living room that he perused with glee, or simply the fact that he had no high-watt heyday to compare this experience to and find it falling short. The wide-eyed innocence with which Aziraphale was taking everything in was a bit envy-inducing, honestly. 

Aziraphale wandered to the bar to fetch drinks for them both, leaving Crowley leaning casually against a vaguely phallic piece of sculptural furniture on the edge of the room. The casual lean sprang up into attention when a familiar disheveled silhouette strolled into view. 

“Newt? What the _hell_ are you doing here?” 

With some difficulty, Newt swallowed down the spinach pastry he’d been in the middle of devouring. “Mr. Crowley! I, um. Anathema invited me, actually.” 

“Really?” said Crowley.

“Yes, _really,”_ said Newt. “I don’t know why you sound so surprised. She likes me. We have a genuine bond. I think we might even be … _meant to be._ ” 

“Forgive me if I don’t trust a sentence like that out of the mouth of a man who wears odd socks and still lives with his mother.” 

Newt didn’t even seem to hear the insult. “Listen. I was just talking to her, actually, and I have to tell you something. I really need to warn you, the label—” 

“I’m _busy,_ Newt,” Crowley said dismissively, as Aziraphale came back through the crowd, handing Crowley a bright pink cocktail that looked promisingly saccharine. “Can’t you save work for working hours?” 

“I mean, _you_ never—” 

“Do as I say, not as I do, you know the drill. Now, scram.” 

Newt scrammed. Crowley turned to Aziraphale, but before either of them could resume their conversation, a voice called out: 

“Anthony? Anthony Crowley, is that you?” 

Crowley reluctantly turned towards the source of the call to find a dark-haired woman tottering towards him, martini in hand, eyes alight with recognition. His instinct was to run away, but she’d already seen him, and was closing in fast. 

“Er…” 

“It’s me, Mary! Mary Hodges! D’you remember? 1997! The _Light Year Dive_ tour? I followed you around for months! I had different hair then— but oh, look at you, you’re looking _marvelous,_ haven’t aged a _day,_ goodness gracious!” 

Crowley’s mind slid back, with some effort, to 1997. He remembered that particular tour as a blur of drugs and drink, and as the peak of the attention of untold thousands of nameless, faceless fangirls, in the front row, at the stage door, crowded outside the tour bus. Which had been fun, but Lucie had taken to calling them his harem, which he really hadn’t liked at all. They had all been convinced he was going to throw Lucie over and marry them, specifically, and when she acted like that was something he’d really ever do, it had rubbed at something sore and sensitive inside.

“Yeah. Yeah, course I remember,” Crowley lied smoothly, “Mary, how’s it going?” 

She smiled, batting her eyelashes coyly. “I’m a lawyer now. Music copyright, actually. I work for Downstairs, doing the contracts.” 

“Wow. That’s huge, congrats.”

“You inspired me, you know. I’ve always wanted to tell you. After that summer I saw you nineteen times in one month, went all the way to Krakow for you, I just _knew_ I had to get into the industry. I’d never cared about anything so much in my life. So I was at EMI for ten years, and then Downstairs came knocking, and…. here we are! Here _you_ are, foxy as ever!” 

“Here I am,” admitted Crowley. 

She was swaying very close to him now, looking him up and down, with an old desire written clearly in her face. Crowley didn’t entirely mind. Honestly, usually he would’ve leaned into it, regardless of his actual intentions— it was just his modus operandi, had been from the start. But not here, not now. Not with Aziraphale beside him. 

“Are you really back?” she asked, her voice lowering conspiratorially. “Like, back for real? Because it’s been _ages,_ and oh, I always hoped... I heard through the grapevine that you wrote Anathema’s new single. Lucie’s _big_ on it, apparently.”

“Nnh. Yeah, I’m— I did write it. With Aziraphale here, actually.” 

Mary glanced at Aziraphale, but her eyes slipped off him like a little kid down a waterslide, and zoomed right back to Crowley. “That’s _amazing._ You’re so talented. Oh, I’m so excited to hear the new version, Sandy’s such a genius, don’t you think? Oop, that’s my assistant over there, I better go rescue her from the Research lads, those naughty boys…” 

“Wasn’t she lovely,” sighed Aziraphale, as Mary wandered away, interrupting Crowley’s jumbled thoughts, as he tried to process _Lucie’s big on it,_ and parse who on Earth she meant by _Sandy._

“Guess so,” he replied with a shrug. 

“Doesn’t it feel marvelous? To know that you inspired someone so deeply that they found their career, their passion, all because of the art you made? Such an _impact_ you’ve had, it’s astonishing!” 

Crowley grunted. “Mm. Dunno. Feels weird.” 

“I think you should be proud.” 

“And I think,” Crowley said, “you should be _offended,_ that she saw you, clearly here with me, and didn’t let it stop her from flirting rather audaciously.” 

Aziraphale laughed, and patted Crowley gently on the arm. “If I can’t take it in stride that other people find you… _tempting,_ I don’t think I’ll last long, my dear. To be quite honest, it’s part of the appeal.” 

Crowley didn't have time to stammer out a response to that before the music piping through the room was suddenly cut off, and a hush descended over the crowd. 

Everyone turned to watch as Anathema emerged, up at the top of the glass staircase, flanked by Bee and Dagny. She was draped in so much black lace she could’ve been a Victorian widow. She even had a veil, a fashionably short one edged in red rhinestones that glittered and flashed. 

The DJ handed Dagny a wireless microphone. 

“Testing, testing… can you all hear me?” Satisfied with the sound quality, she handed the mic to Bee, who rambled on for a while about Downstairs having their best sales quarter ever, with an increased marketshare, and eleven BRIT Awards, blah blah, but Crowley wasn’t listening. He was looking at Anathema. From this distance, he couldn’t quite make out her expression, but her body language seemed cowed, somehow— a far cry from the confident star who’d swished into the meeting room only a few days ago. 

Then Bee finally droned to a halt, and handed the mic over to Anathema. She swept her veil back from her face, revealing dramatic red eyeshadow and a unique iridescent lipstick color that Crowley recognized as “Fyre” from the Midnight Collection. 

“My third album, _Save The World,_ is very nearly complete. I’ve been so lucky to work with so many incredible collaborators on this project.” She looked out at the crowd, but sort of blankly, not catching anyone’s eye. “Without further ado, here is the title track. It’s not quite done, I still have to record final vocals, but— Bee wanted you all to be the first ones to ever hear it. Enjoy.” 

The DJ hit play, and suddenly an upbeat, sparkling pop track began to ring out through the speakers. The assembled crowd of industry professionals cheered, and some even began to dance. The intro featured a radio-ready vocal sample, chopped up like an EDM track, above an ear-splitting synth line and over-compressed, skittering hi-hats. 

There must have been a mistake. This wasn’t what they’d written at all. 

Aziraphale’s face was pale and expressionless. Crowley’s felt like it was on fire. 

“What the fuck,” growled Crowley, “have they done to our song?”

***


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta'd as ever by the wonderful curtaincall!

“Crowley, there’s really no need—” 

“Where is she?” Crowley said, pushing guests out of the way like a black-jacketed bulldozer. 

The butterflies in Aziraphale’s stomach had undergone an unexpected metamorphosis into long strings of weak spaghetti, which were currently engaged in the tricky business of tying themselves into complicated knots. He was fairly sure he’d preferred the butterflies, which had popped into existence as the newly-revamped version of “Save The World” had played, and Crowley’s face had gone red and wrathful. 

“I do understand you’re upset,” Aziraphale said, grabbing uselessly at Crowley’s arm, “but couldn’t it perhaps wait until the morning? You could write an email—” 

Finally, Crowley spotted Anathema, visible in the gap between two besuited executive types, and let out a bark— ”Oi! Popstar!” — as he grabbed Aziraphale’s hand and pulled him towards her. 

She was deep in conversation with a dark-haired young man, who evaporated like a nervous gothic mist the approach of an apex predator in the form of a has-been rockstar on the warpath. 

“Oh, Crowley, hi!” Anathema exclaimed, her smile gleaming and professional. She reached out and wrapped him in a hug, which he stiffened underneath for just a moment before relaxing ever so slightly into. 

“I’m so glad you could come,” she said. “I know you were a big partier back in your Morningstar days. I’m sure this brings back good memories, doesn’t it?” 

Crowley’s mouth flapped a few times without any sound emerging, before getting out, “Nng. Yeah. Great scene. Thanks for the invite.” 

“And this must be your mysterious co-writer!” She turned to Aziraphale and threw the full force of her magnetism on him. Every inch of her glittered with it; Aziraphale wondered at first how long it took one to develop that kind of quality, once a career began, but upon reflection, figured a deterministic question was more appropriate: was Anathema famous because she was born with that ineffable aura, or had it only come later, as a crowning reward?

He was leaning towards the former, truth be told. There were some people who were simply born to be beloved. 

Crowley didn’t seem to currently be in the business of introducing Aziraphale, so he took matters into his own hands. “Yes,” he said, reaching out for Anathema’s hand to shake. “That’s right, I’m Aziraphale Fell, I— er, I wrote the lyrics.” It felt wholly unreal to say that out loud, as if it were _true_ or something. Aziraphale the songwriter. 

“You did an amazing job,” Anathema said sincerely.

“Oh, it was nothing, really,” Aziraphale said. “Crowley made all of the magic happen.” 

Crowley looked deeply torn between preening under the weight of the compliment and dismissing it reflexively, and ended up just sort of shrugging. 

“Anyway, the song sounded very good, my dear,” Aziraphale went on. “Love all the… sounds.” 

“Thank you,” said Anathema blandly, and Crowley flinched visibly. 

“Listen,” he said to her. “The song. It’s not the one we turned in.” 

“No,” Anathema said, “I mean, yes, the label brought Sandy the Phone in to do some work on the track. You know Sandy, right?” 

“Hold on. You mean— Sandy, who used to be in Pillars?” 

The name did not ring a bell for Aziraphale, but based on context clues, he could be fairly certain of his inference that Pillars were some sort of pop band. 

“So you do know him?” 

Crowley made a performative gagging noise. “ _Know_ him? Urgh, we lost out to his band two years in a row at the BRITs. And that song ‘Don’t Turn Back’ ruined every club night for months.” 

“Well,” said Anathema, diplomatically, “Bee and Dagny are pretty sure that the song will be a hit, thanks to him.” 

“A hit,” Crowley said. “Hm. Don’t you have enough of those?” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“You don’t need another four on the floor dance anthem, is the thing.” 

“I don’t really know what you’re saying—” 

“What I’m saying is, you should change the song back. Get rid of that shiny crud that’s been layered on, and just let it speak for itself.” 

“I’m sorry,” Anathema said. She shook her head sadly. “There’s really nothing— I mean, Crowley, you know how this sort of thing works, don’t you?” 

“Not the sort of thing you forget,” he said. “But it doesn’t have to be like this, Anathema, I _know_ how much this song means to you!”

Her so-recently kind face began to harden. “Well, if you really know how much it means to me,” she said, “then you’ll understand why this is the way it has to be.” 

“Anathema,” Crowley said now, his tone rising altogether too loud for a social event, far too harsh to be directed at the woman of the hour, “I wrote the song— _we_ wrote the song— that you asked for. That you _wanted._ And that—” jabbing an accusatory finger up to the DJ table “—wasn’t it, at all.” He looked, desperately, to Aziraphale. “Don’t you agree?”

People around them at the party were beginning to notice the blow-up. Aziraphale hated being watched like this, being noticed, being blamed. It made him want to find a rock to hide under, a shell to retreat inside. And with Crowley’s urgent gaze on him, Aziraphale nearly folded there, nearly nodded in silent agreement and waved a hand and let Crowley carry on until he’d gotten it out of his system, to avoid causing any more of a scene.

Then he recalled the way that woman, Mary, had approached Crowley, brimming over with gratitude and enthusiasm for the effect he’d had on her life— how many thousands of others must feel the same? How many untold strangers been pointed by Crowley in the direction of their hearts’ desire, then been spurred on by him to take it for their own?

Crowley had held such power, once. His art had touched the hearts of so many people. And Aziraphale knew firsthand, better than most, how wonderful Crowley was. He knew that Crowley deserved nothing less than to be lifted up again into that holy echelon again, to be accorded respect, renown, recognition.

But without the status and respect that this song would bring him, Crowley’s wonderful voice would carry no further than the absurd shouts of the mad witch hunter in the park. 

In Aziraphale’s publishing days, he’d often been responsible for presenting edits to new authors, advising them on the direction of their debut works. When Gabriel was promoted, and the editorial division took on a more stringent approach under his leadership, Aziraphale had been the one delegated to take things in hand. 

Dealing with the tempestuous desires of creators was something he had a fair bit of experience with, though it had been a while since he’d needed to step up to the plate. But he hadn’t forgotten what he’d learned, how it always ended up much better in the long run when the authors simply went along with it. _They_ weren’t the professionals, after all. 

Crowley was misguided, Aziraphale was sure of it. And it was Aziraphale’s responsibility to stand up and protect Anathema, protect the song that he and Crowley had worked so hard on.

“Actually,” Aziraphale pronounced, as delicately and neutrally as he could, “I think the song is quite fine in its revised version. Really, it might even be an improvement. You’re doing wonderfully, Anathema, and I’m so looking forward to the release.” 

“Really? Really, that’s what you’re going with?” Crowley said, through gritted teeth. The tendons on his neck were visibly taut. 

“Yes, my dear, I think she should be congratulated on—”

“On what? On letting the song _she_ wanted, the one _she_ asked for, turn into a pile of steaming synth-pop garbage?” 

“Crowley!” 

“I’m just being honest, angel.” 

Anathema’s lip wobbled. The shine of her had turned transparent like melting ice; beneath it Aziraphale could sense a shapeless darkness, undulating. She very clearly needed to be reassured that everything was going to be alright. And Aziraphale wanted nothing more than to do so, to gather her close and say sweet calming things. He was good at that. He wasn’t good at much else. 

But he had to make a choice— and as Crowley stormed away, through the crowd of industry busybodies already warming up the gossip machines and chattering to each other, _ohhh isn’t that Anthony Crowley? He hasn’t changed much, has he,_ Aziraphale knew what he was going to do.

He could feel the eyes of the partygoers burning on the back of his neck as he fought his way to the foyer, and then outside into the chill fall air of the front walk. Crowley had his hand on the gate by the time Aziraphale burst out through the door, some yards away. 

“You can’t leave!” Aziraphale called out. “The party’s not over—!” 

“Course I can,” Crowley said, turning to face Aziraphale from across the garden. “Leaving a party early is one of the greatest joys in adult life. But I guess you wouldn’t know, would you? Do publishing people even have parties, or do they just sit around snarking about how best to publish the same three books over and over and stop people from noticing?” 

Aziraphale wrung his hands on the doorstep, his stomach churning. “Crowley, be serious. You can’t expect Anathema to go against the wishes of her entire label.”

“Maybe I can’t expect it, yeah, but I can hope it, and more than that, I can actually _try_ to make it happen! Otherwise, what’s the bloody point of all this?” 

“I simply don’t know why you can’t just accept that she doesn’t want to do what you’re demanding her to. And even if she did want to, she _couldn’t!”_

“You are being idiotic. Which can be cute sometimes, I’ll admit— but right now it’s not. Don’t you see? She’s got all the leverage. She _could_ speak up. She _could_ put her foot down. Refuse to cut the final vocals. Refuse to sign off on the release. But she’s not going to, is she?” 

“She is a _grown woman,_ Crowley. With a career, one far more successful than yours at this stage, I might point out.” 

“And you were a grown man with a career when you let that asshole Gabriel walk all over you,” Crowley snarled. “Age is just a number, Aziraphale. Making money for doing your job doesn’t mean you know what’s best, never has.” 

“It’s just one song,” said Aziraphale, pleadingly. “What harm can it do? It’s— it’s still _our_ song, our lyrics— well, most of them— well, some of them— and I mean, once the song is _out,_ and it’s a success, you’ll have other artists knocking down your door to work with you, I’m sure. Won’t it be for the best?” 

Crowley’s long legs closed the distance between them in a swift instant. He was very close to Aziraphale now. Aziraphale could have leaned in to kiss him; his lips were as round and soft as they’d ever been. 

“You are being incredibly selfish,” he said. 

This astounded Aziraphale, more than anything else Crowley had said in the last few minutes. 

“I beg of you, enlighten me,” Aziraphale bit out, “because it seems to me that you’re the selfish one here. You’re so overprotective of this song, so willing to sacrifice everything it could do, just because you’ve got some kind of chip on your shoulder about your art. Well, it’s half my song too, in case you’ve forgotten! And I want it to bring you happiness. I do. Is that so bad?” 

Crowley jabbed a finger at him. “No, no. I see how it is. Yeah, I really do. You’d have me sacrifice my integrity just so you can ride my coattails. You couldn’t get to the top with Gabriel, so you’re trying it again with me.” 

The vehemence with which he delivered this accusation was like a cold knife, sliding in between Aziraphale’s ribs and sticking there, slick and fatal. He couldn’t say anything. If he did, he thought he might burst into tears. 

“I really thought you would be different,” Crowley said, into the silence. The anger was suddenly gone from his voice; his tone was airless and brittle. 

And then he stalked away down the red carpet leading to the front gate, and was gone. 

  
  


***

Crowley ignored every text and email from Newt the next day, and every call from Aziraphale’s number as well. He had an instrumental to finish for a corporate client and a call with a man who wanted him to play on a pleasure cruise to Majorca, and he threw himself into his work with a spiteful intensity. 

He didn’t know what else to do. Resentment threatened to seethe up through his skin until it burned long and hard enough to tempt him into dangerous territory, so he just stayed on task, beating out drum tracks, tweaking mix levels, dragging loops across the screen.

He supposed when the revised agreement came through and cut that twat Sandy in on the royalties he could refuse to sign, put his foot down and stop the song coming out at all. 

But even after everything Aziraphale had said, even after he’d turned out to be no better, in his own special way, than Lucie at her sycophantic worst, Crowley couldn’t bear to deprive him of what he was due. He’d get his royalties, no matter what. Fuck knows what he’d do with the money; probably spend it all on expensive old books or fancy pens. Could give it all to his sister, like the bleeding heart he was, for all Crowley cared. 

Throughout the day, Crowley continued to see Anathema Device’s face before his eyes, all twisted up with the truth of what he was telling her but paralyzed, unable to move on it. 

He’d been in that position, and he didn’t envy her a whit. And she had to deal with social media and makeup sponsorships and dance rehearsals, on top of the label’s musical demands. (At least his own moves had been fully improvised at the best of times, and accidental at worst. Nary a barre or waxed wood floor in sight, just a gyration or two of the hips onstage and the girls and boys all went mad. Simple stuff.)

If he’d had someone like him, someone who’d been through it all, standing in front of him, telling those uncomfortable truths, maybe he could’ve avoided years of slow decline, traded it in for an extravagant freak-out flash-bang finale instead. That’s all he’d wanted: to save Anathema from his own regrets. He worked hard to suppress the thought that he very possibly had gone about it the wrong way. 

Eventually the bitter fuel he’d been running on all day ran out, and he slumped backwards in his chair, exhausted. 

He checked the movie times at the nearest cinema. There was nothing good on at all. Perfect. That’d do him for the next few hours, then. Just what he needed, to turn his brain off for a bit, sit in a dark room with a bag of popcorn he wouldn’t end up eating, and very decidedly not think about the way Aziraphale’s hands had twisted together, the way he could’ve reached out and grabbed hold of them right there, and instead had held himself back, stiff and strained.

 _I want it to bring you happiness,_ Aziraphale had said, about the song. Well. It had, maybe, for a few days. And maybe it would, to the drunken club-goers and shrieking Anathema fans who bobbed and swayed to the revised version, taking in none of the meaning or the message behind it. But not to him, surely. Not anymore.

***

In the back room of the shop, Aziraphale was dutifully writing up the coupon copy for Tracy’s upcoming Halloween discount extravaganza. 

Or at least, that’s what he was meant to be doing, in an ideal world where he was every bit the dedicated marketer he had been a week ago. 

In this reality, however, he had his notebook out, and had opened it up to where its ribbon had last been tucked in, on that eventful night that seemed now like it had happened in another life. The left-hand page was filled with the final version of the last few stanzas of “Save The World,” and on the page opposite, he was doodling. It had started out as a flower, but had turned into a great ugly spiral that covered the whole page, turning endlessly in on itself, marred with thickets of crosshatches that grew denser and denser, until they were spots of pure black ink through which no white showed at all. 

Whatever magic Aziraphale had felt— or, more likely, had imagined he’d felt— with Crowley, it was gone now. His life was to return to its usual humdrum state, with his few days as a professional songwriter with a handsome rockstar for a lover a mere blip in the sedate radar. 

Aziraphale was not a scab-picker. He was content to leave things be; he’d always been uncomfortable with the thought of embarrassing himself by futilely attempting to change things that were clearly unchangeable. 

But this was different. He found himself, now, fixating endlessly on the argument. Coming back to it, over and over, in his mind. The unexpected harshness in Crowley’s voice, the contortions of his face, when all Aziraphale had wanted was for him to be successful, for things to go _right._

Aziraphale still had a hard time seeing what exactly had gone wrong. Perhaps he’d had one too many of those pink cocktails— perhaps Crowley had as well— but still, there must have been a way that things could have turned out better. If Aziraphale had worded something slightly differently, or been a little more convincing in his approach… 

He wished, not for the first time that morning, that there was some higher authority he could speak to. But Crowley was the one with the music connections, Crowley was the one with all the success and the know-how. Without Crowley there to stand beside him, bring him into the fold, hold his hand and show him the way, he was right back to where he started.

Aziraphale flung his notebook down, rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and returned to his keyboard. 

When the shop’s door swung open with a chime, he didn’t look up. He had finally found a fount of focus reserved somewhere deep within him, and was busy expounding on the protective properties of heliotrope bloodstone, and how an interested customer could purchase five medallions for the price of three, for a limited time only!

A few minutes later, he realized he was dying for a cup of tea. His mug was sitting forlorn and empty next to his keyboard; he didn’t particularly want to get up and have to deal with putting on a happy face for Tracy, but it was a gauntlet he was willing and ready to suffer through in pursuit of refreshment. 

When he opened the door, he blinked, immediately in disbelief at what his eyes were telling him. 

Anathema Device was in the shop. She was incognito, he realized, with her hair in a demure bun, massive black sunglasses perched on her nose, and a black turtleneck and high-waisted blue jeans instead of her usual witchy ensemble, but her aura was untampered with and unmistakable. 

She was deep in conversation with Tracy, who had her laminated menu of psychic services and mystical guidance spread on the countertop for perusal. 

“...Anathema?” 

She looked up. “Aziraphale?” 

“What— I’m sorry, what are you doing here? You— er, you could’ve called,” he said. “Or sent me an email…” 

“You work here?” she said, bemused. 

Oh. Well, obviously she hadn’t come to see _him._ How silly of him to have even thought such a thing. 

“I— I do, yes. This is my sister, Tracy…” He trailed off rather uselessly. 

Tracy beamed. “I was telling Miss Device here about the deal we’ve got on for tarot readings,” she said. “She was just in the neighborhood, isn’t that right, dear?” 

“And have you already taken your selfie, then?” Aziraphale couldn’t help the smirk that entered his voice. 

“Aziraphale!” Tracy gave a mock-astonished gasp of offense. “I would _never—_ unless— I mean, unless, that’s alright with you, ma’am, I’ve got a lovely little girl at home and she is just the most _massive_ fan of yours, she’d be _so_ thrilled to see, and by thrilled I mean _very_ jealous, I’d never hear the last of it…” 

“Go on, go on,” Aziraphale said, motioning, as Anathema smiled graciously and leaned in for a round of Tracy’s trademark snaps. 

“Have you picked out your choice of reading yet?” Aziraphale asked, as Tracy tapped away on her phone with hot-pink nails to send the snaps off to Pepper, whose scream would surely render her entire school to dust at the moment the missive was received. 

“Yes, I think so,” Anathema said. “I’d like to do the full tarot spread, with the bonus palm reading.” 

“A fabulous choice, darling,” Tracy said. “I’ll just head to the back and get that ready for you. I’ll ring the bell when it’s your time. Aziraphale, mind the counter, will you?” 

She bustled off to the curtained-off section in the far corner of the shop, where Aziraphale knew she was busy loading up her special playlist and lighting her special incense and doing her vocal warmups. 

“Can I get you some tea?” he asked. “I was just about to make some…” 

“It’s alright,” Anathema said, and then sighed heavily. “But thank you, that’s very kind.” He could see the weight carried in her shoulders and her back, like the whole world was resting its weight on her slim frame. 

“I’m so sorry about last night,” he said, at length. “If— if I’d known how impolite Crowley could get with a few drinks in him, I never would have—”

“It’s not your fault,” Anathema said automatically.

“But it is, it most certainly is,” he insisted. “He was awfully rude to you.”

“No, no. I should have been kinder to him,” she said. “I should have heard him out. I could tell he was speaking from the heart. But it just wasn’t…. that wasn’t the kind of thing I needed to be hearing.” She had picked up a chunk of polished tiger’s eye from a dish on the counter and was turning it over in her hands, in a soothing rhythm. “I’d been trying all day to push those thoughts away, and he made them come flooding back.”

“You mean… you want… you want to change the song too? You agree with Crowley?” 

“It’s not that. I mean, _maybe_ if I could, I _might_ , but I can’t. It’s not an option. And I— didn’t want to talk about it, not right there, with everyone from the label around, listening, judging, you know…” 

“Oh, my dear girl,” he said, his heart swelling with sympathy. 

She pushed her sunglasses up atop her head, and looked him in the eye. “And I mean, I get it, is the thing. Like, do you know how things ended? With Crowley, and his old band.” 

“Er. No?”

“I didn’t either. Not until last night. Morningstar were my total favorites growing up but I was always far more attached to the actual music than the gossip behind it, I was a bit too young for the tabloids, and plus they never really got covered in America like they did here. So I took a chance and I asked Bee if she knew anything, just out of curiosity. And she told me— God, I don’t even know if I should be spreading this around. But I think you should know. Bee told me— and this is just secondhand, you understand, but it seems to be common knowledge enough within the label—”

In a low, calm, voice, Anathema explained what she’d heard. It appeared that Lucie Ferris, after over a decade of inseparable collaboration in all areas of life with Crowley, had been tempted by the glamour of the life of the solo artist. But she hadn’t just cut and run— instead, she slowly sidelined Crowley’s vision for the band, couching her arguments in a desire for more money, more success, as her ambition grew. Pointing out that songs with more of her vocals did better anyway; arguing that they should be moving in a more “pop” direction to compete with the changing charts.

With an older executive from their label under her thumb and in her bed, she’d taken Crowley’s loyalty to her and twisted it, manipulated it until it couldn’t stand the strain any longer. Then she’d dropped him like a piece of litter, swanned off to a brand new solo contract, and left him behind. 

Aziraphale’s stomach dropped, inch by inch, as Anathema spoke. Crowley’s betrayed expression from the night before swam up before him, pinched and pained. And to think, all Aziraphale had wanted was for Crowley to find success again, for the world to once again see him for the star he was. 

If he had just _told_ Aziraphale— but no, Crowley had never owed him any sort of disclosure. Not ever, not even because Aziraphale had spilled his own secrets. It was just a horrible coincidence, then, that the tack he’d taken in their disagreement had touched old wounds so deeply. 

“That’s terrible,” Aziraphale said. 

“Yeah,” Anathema said. “It is. Apparently, most people thought he’d never really work again, that he wasn’t anything without her. But I don’t think that was ever true.” 

“It was very kind of you to bring him in. I just tagged along.” 

“You two work so well together,” Anathema mused. “You know, you could do more songs for me, and they wouldn’t end up getting all turned around like this one… We could do some sort of low-key acoustic tracks for the bonus edition, I think Bee would probably be down with that, actually.” 

“Oh, I don’t think that’s likely, my dear.” 

“Why not?”

“Well, let’s just say… the, er, _disagreement_ you witnessed between us last night… that was the mere tip of the iceberg. I’m sorry to tell you I don’t think he’ll ever want to speak to me again, let along write more songs with me.” 

“But you work so well together!” she said. “Oh, I feel even worse now…” 

“Please don’t, oh, please,” he said, and he finally did what he’d wanted to do this whole time, and reached out to fold her in his arms in a warm, tight hug. “You are a strong and wonderful girl,” he said, “you are brilliantly talented, you bring light and joy to so many. The song will be a success, and never mind what anyone has to say about it, or about you. You’re doing what you must, and you’re doing it so well.” 

She looked up at him as they separated. Her eyes were dry and clear, rather unlike his, which he dabbed at with the back of a hand. “You know, I really didn’t know you worked here when I came in. I swear. I was just wandering around, passing time before going in to record the final vocals for ‘Save The World.’ It must have been destiny.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Just a coincidence.”

“Hm.” She smiled, slightly. “What about meeting Crowley? Was that a coincidence, too?”

“I really couldn’t say, my dear.” He was unable to keep the wistfulness out of his sigh. 

“Have you spoken? Since last night? If that’s not too much of a personal question, I mean.” 

“I’ve not been able to get ahold of him. I’m fairly certain he’s refusing my calls.” 

“Well, do you have Newton’s number? His manager? I’m sure he could get a message through to him.” 

“I don’t, no.” 

She took out her phone and copied down the number for Aziraphale onto the back of one of the business cards on the counter. 

“There you go,” she said. “I really hope you’re able to get in touch.”

“Thank you so much,” Aziraphale said, staring cautiously down at the digits in hand. 

“And at the very least, I want you at my concert next week. We’ll be debuting the song. You can bring your sister, and your niece— I’ll give them backstage passes, how about that?” 

“Oh, really? That would be marvelous, Pepper would be in _heaven—”_ Then his face fell. “But… Crowley will be there, won't he." 

She raised an eyebrow. “It’s a massive stadium. _You_ don’t have to go backstage. Chances are you won’t even cross paths, if you’re really worried about that.” 

A chime jangled from inside Tracy’s corner. Anathema retreated with a wave, disappearing inside the heavy velvet curtains, and Aziraphale stood in front of the counter for just a moment before making a decision, and darting back to retrieve his notebook and pen from the back room. 

By the time she re-emerged, some forty-five minutes later, he was ready. He tore out the page he’d been writing on, folded it up, and walked over to hand it to her.

“What’s this?” 

“Lyrics,” he said. “New ones. For— for your recording. If that’s alright.” 

She opened it up, and read what was inside. “Thank you, Aziraphale,” she said. “Thank you so much.” She replaced her sunglasses, gave him a swift and gentle kiss on the cheek, and exited, taking all her exceptional, unassailable confidence with her, leaving Aziraphale feeling at once weak and defenseless against the worries that threatened his gut, the fears battering at the very edges of him. 

“What a lovely girl,” Tracy said, emerging from her curtained corner with a flourish. 

“How did it go?” Aziraphale asked. “What does the future of Anathema Device hold, O great prophetess of South London?” 

“Like I’d tell you!” she crowed. “That’s private, and you know it. Now, how about those coupons, then?” 

He handed the counter back to Tracy, and headed back to his desk. He’d been working in silence all day, but with Anathema’s musical presence still suffused throughout the shop, he rather thought it would be appropriate to turn something on. Something in particular. 

“There you are,” he whispered to himself, as he found purchase on his quarry. A slim cassette, hand-copied. The very same one he’d played over and over again, during his younger years, brimming over with curiosity and optimism.

He popped it into the player, and then sat back and listened. The strange coincidence of Anathema’s connection to Agnes Nutter, reinforced again, was alive in his mind, a single shining string stretching across history. It wasn’t something he could remain unaffected by, despite his plea of coincidence to Anathema. 

The last song on the album was one he hadn’t listened to in years. It was certainly the most straightforward and earnest track, bare-faced in its desire.

_Sometimes it’s not nice  
_ _Sometimes it’s not a good thing  
_ _But I want you, I do  
_ _And I want to hear you sing_

_I want the world to breathe  
_ _I want to live in it  
_ _I want your eyes to open  
_ _And let the light give to you what you’ve given it_

_Cause it’s anything but easy  
_ _When you play with fire  
_ _But it helps if you believe in  
_ _Something bigger, something higher_

_It’s anything but easy  
_ _But I’ll try, I’ll try, I'll try  
_ _Anything, I’ll try_

It faded out, and the room was once again silent. 

Aziraphale picked up his phone, and dialed Newton Pulsifer. 

  
  


***

When Crowley stepped out of the cinema that evening, and checked his phone, he couldn’t help frown at the fact that he had no new missed calls or texts. What was the point of ignoring the world for a few hours, if he wasn’t going to reemerge to proof that he’d been missed?

He dialed Newt. Got voicemail. “What the hell?” he growled, after the beep, and hung up. Who could he possibly be busy talking to? Anathema? No, she was off recording that thrice-damned song. And the kid certainly didn’t have any other friends, as far as Crowley knew. 

On the walk back to his place, his phone buzzed twice, but neither was a missive from his assistant. 

The first one was the revised song agreement, which Newt was copied on and Crowley trusted he would fill out and send over in a timely manner. 

The second was the advance for Anathema’s show at the O2 next week, requesting his equipment information and microphone preference in regards to his duet performance of “Save The World.” 

“Ugh,” Crowley groaned, and deleted the message.

***

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe) :)


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